PRINCETON,  N.  J.  ''^ 


..#^  ""%*. 


Presented    b7^^<2.a\C'.(2/^vV  \  O^.War 


BX    5937     .S65    C3 

smith,  John  cotton,  1826 

certain  aspects  of  the 
church        


> 


/ 


BRIAR-HILL  LECTURES, 


OERTAIE"  ASPECTS 


THE     OHUROH 


AvQpoo7to<i  si;  ivGoffiv  Karrjpriapisvo^. 

S.  Ignat.  Epist.  ad  Pkil.  Cap.  V. 


BY 

JOHN    COTTON    SMITH,   D.D. 


KEW-YOEK  : 
T.  WHITTAKER,  No.  2  BIBLE  HOUSE. 

1881. 


TO   THE 

REV.  REUBEN  KIDNER,  RECTOR. 


AND  TO  THE 


WARDENS  AND  VESTRYMEN 

OF    THE 

IPSWICH,  MASS., 

THIS  VOLUME  OF  LECTURES  IS 

DEDICATED. 


COISTTEIJ^TS. 


Page 
Charity  and  Truth, 5 

The  Liturgy  and  Christian  Union,     .        .         37 

The  Church's  Law  of  Development,       .        .    65 

The  Church's  Mission  of  Reconciliation,  .       105 


PEEFACE. 


The  title  "  Briar-Hill  Lectures"  has  been 
given  to  this  volume  because  the  lectures  or 
sermons  which  it  contains  have  been  written, 
in  the  retirement  of  summer  months,  at  "  Briar 
Hill,"  in  the  town  of  Ipswich,  Mass.  Through 
the  kindness  of  the  rector  and  vestry  of  the 
parish  in  that  place,  the  author  has  been  able 
not  only  to  witness  but,  to  some  extent,  to  co- 
operate in  the  work  there  done  for  the  church. 
With  grateful  appreciation  of  this  privilege,  the 
volume  is  dedicated  to  the  Eector,  Wardens, 
and  Vestry  of  the  Church  of  the  Ascension, 
Ipswich,  Mass.  ^- 

<  City  op  New  York,  Ascension  Rectobt, 
"I      Festival  of  St.  Luke,  Oct.  18, 1880. 


CHARITY   A]SrD    TEUTH. 


Preached  at  the  Ordixation  of  the  Rev. 
J.  I.  T.  CooLiDGE,  D.D.,  Apr.  14,  1859. 

"  Charity — rejjiceth  in  the  truth." — 1  Cor.  13  :  6. 

The  circumstances  of  this  occasion  almost 
demand  tiie  consideration  of  the  subject  upon 
which  I  am  to  address  j^ou.  Tlie  ordination 
which  has  called  us  together  is  the  consummat- 
ing act  of  a  change  in  religious  doctrines  and 
ecclesiastical  relations.  And  the  change  itself 
brings  before  the  mind  the  melancholy  truth 
that  the  Christian  world  is  not  one  household, 
living  together  iu  unity  of  spirit  and  the  bond 
of  peace,  but  rather  presents  a  hostile  array  of 
rival  churches  and  sects,  distracted  by  mutual 
jealousy  and  suspicion,  and  too  often  tearing 
and  rending  each  other,  instead  of  doing  battle 


6  CHARITY  AND  TRUTH. 

with  the  common  foe.  This  condition  of  things 
in  Christendom  presents  a  most  important  sub- 
ject for  our  consideration,  and  suggests  innu- 
merable practical  questions.  The  relations 
which  i^ersons  calling  themselves  Christians 
sustain  to  each  other  press  upon  us  the  appar- 
ently rival  claims  of  Charity  and  Truth.  How 
to  be  faithful  to  both  is  the  practical  diffi- 
culty. We  meet  with  such  questions  as  these  : 
what  is  the  truth  ?  how  much  of  truth  is  funda- 
mental ?  what  is  to  be  insisted  upon  as  neces- 
sary, and  what  may  be  left  as  matter  of  opin- 
ion ?  how  far  does  charity  require  us  to  go  with 
those  who  differ  from  us  ?  and  what  obstacles 
does  a  proj)er  regard  for  the  truth  interpose  in 
the  way  of  what  charity  would  seem  to  present 
as  so  desirable — unity  of  spirit  and  of  organiza- 
tion among  all  who  profess  to  be  the  followers 
of  Christ  ? 

I  shall  endeavor,  by  God's  blessing,  to  lay 
down  and  illustrate  some  general  principles  by 
which  such  questions  as  these  may  perhaps  be 
satisfactorily  answered. 

It  is  my  earnest  desire  to  be  faithful  both  to 
Charity  and  Truth  ;  and  although  I  cannot  hope 


CHARITY  AND  TRUTH.  7 

to  meet  the  views  of  those  with  whom  truth, 
whatever  may  be  its  relative  importance,  is  the 
only  consideration,  or  of  those  with  whom  the 
principle  of  charity  is  carried  to  extremes,  I 
still  trust  that  no  essential  truth  may  be  com- 
promised for  the  sake  of  charity,  and  that  I 
shall  not  be  held  as  an  enemy  to  charity  be- 
cause I  insist  upon  fundamental  truth.  My 
only  desire  is  to  do  something  to  adjust,  in  our 
minds,  the  relations  of  the  two. 

As  the  first  step  in  oar  inquiry,  it  would  be 
well  to  bring  before  our  minds  the  actual  state 
of  our  community  in  this  respect,  so  that  we 
may  ascertain  what  is  the  condition  of  things 
in  regard  to  which  the  claims  of  Charity  and 
Truth  are  to  be  made. 

But  there  is  no  time  on  this  occasion  to  do 
more  than  simply  to  notice  the  fact  that  there 
are  certain  tendencies,  clearly  apparent,  in  the 
various  bodies  of  Christians  into  which  this 
community  is  divided.  These  tendencies  may, 
I  think,  be  reduced  to  three — one  toward  ra- 
tionalism, one  toward  superstition,  and  one 
consisting  in  a  reaction  from  these  extremes  to- 
ward evangelical  religion. 


8  CHARITY  AND   TRUTH. 

The  state  of  speculative  j)hilosophy  at  the 
present  day  is  such  as  greatly  to  accelerate  these 
tendencies.  Its  effect  must  be  to  gather  various 
religious  schools  into  a  few  great  classes^  and  to 
define  the  boundaries  of  these  classes  more 
sharply  than  ever  before.  The  philosophical 
views  of  Sir  William  Hamilton,  whether  true  or 
false,  are  destined,  it  seems  to  me,  to  affect  very 
powerfally  the  great  religious  tendencies  of  the 
age.  Sir  William  Hamilton's  object  was,  as  is 
well  known,  to  determine  the  limits  of  human 
knowledge,  and  the  result  of  his  investigation 
is  that  we  can  know  logically  only  the  rela- 
tive, the  finite,  the  conditioned  ;  and  that  the 
absolute,  the  unconditioned,  and  the  infinite 
are,  strictly  speaking,  beyond  the  limits  of 
human  knowledge.  Now,  if  this  philosophy 
becomes  prevalent,  men  will  be  compelled  to 
choose  between  faith  in  a  divine  revelation 
and  speculative  atheism.  Rationalism  must 
become  atheistic,  if  reason  can  give  us  only 
the  relative  and  the  finite,  and  those  who 
are  appalled  at  such  a  conclusion  will  be 
compelled  to  rely  implicitly  ujDon  divine  rev- 
elation for  a  knowledge  of  the  infinite.     Eea- 


CHARITY  AND  TRUTH.  9 

son  will  take  its  proper  place  in  relation  to 
faith,  and  Anselni's  profound  words  will  be  rec- 
ognized as  containing  the  highest  wisdom  :  "  I 
do  not  know  in  order  that  I  may  believe,  but 
believe  in  order  that  I  may  know." 

A  consideration  of  these  tendencies,  it  seems 
to  me,  is  sufficient  to  convince  us  that  there  are 
three  centres  around  which  the  religious  ten- 
dencies of  the  age  are  gradually  gathering  them- 
selves, and  that  three  great  and  distinctly  de- 
fined classes  will  eventually  absorb  the  endless 
diversity  of  religious  opinions  which  now  exists. 
Eeason  without  faith  will  fiud  its  way  to  some 
system  of  philosopliic  atheism  like  that  of 
Comte.  Eeason  with  faith,  and  in  submission 
to  it,  will  lead  to  some  evangelical  system — for 
faith  must  rest  upon  the  Word  of  God,  and 
there  is  no  Protestant  system  not  evangelical  in 
which  the  Word  of  God  has  j)reserved  its  integ- 
rity. Faith  without  reason  will  work  itself 
gradually  into  the  superstition  of  the  Church  of 
Rome,  since  those  superstitions  which  have 
most  of  authority  will  gradually  attract  those 
who  are  superstitiously  inclined. 

Upon  this  view  of  the  present  state  and  ten- 


10  CHABITT  AND   TRUTH. 

dencies  of  religious  opinion  among  us,  we  are 
prepared  to  consider  whab  elements  there  are 
for  cordial  sympathy  and  co-oi^eration  in  the 
Christian  bodies  by  which  we  are  surrounded. 
There  is,  of  course,  in  regard  to  all  connected 
with  them,  and  indeed  to  all  mankind,  the  sa- 
cred duty  of  charity.  We  are  under  the  most 
solemn  obligations  to  entertain  kindly  feelings 
toward  those  who  differ  most  Avidely  from  us. 
But  what  we  wish  to  know  is,  whether  we  may 
not,  without  any  comjiromise  of  the  truth, 
come  into  closer  connection  with  those  who 
call  themselves  by  the  name  of  our  Master.  Our 
own  Church  has  labored  heretofore  under  the 
suspicion  of  being  specially  exclusive  and  un- 
charitable ;  and  it  becomes  us  to  inquire  whether 
we  may  not  have  appeared  so,  even  where  the 
interests  of  the  truth  imjoosed  no  obligation 
upon  us  ;  and  whether  we  may  not,  therefore, 
have  stood  in  the  way  of  a  closer  union  among 
Christ's  people,  even  when  that  union  required 
no  compromise  of  the  truth.  Every  one's  duty 
in  this  respect  is  to  be  determined  by  what  he 
considers  as  necessary  or  fundamental  truth. 
And  yet,  in  this  very  respect,  there  is  danger  of 


CHARITY  AND  TRUTH.  H 

a  violation  of  charity  ;  for  why,  it  may  be 
asked,  should  one  Christian  refuse  fellowship 
with  another  whose  learning  and  religious  char- 
acter are  at  least  equal  to  his  own  ?  It  will,  I 
trust,  be  thought  by  those  who  do  not  hold 
evangelical  views  that  the  apparent  want  of 
charity  in  those  who  make  these  views  funda- 
mental is,  at  least  in  some  degree,  justified  by 
the  fact  that  they  do  not  stand  simply  upon 
their  own  reason — which  may  not  be  any  better 
than  that  of  their  opponents — nor  simply  upon 
their  own  interpretation  of  the  Scriptures — 
which  they  will  admit  is  fallible — but  also  upon 
the  fact  that  these  few  fundamental  points  have 
stood  forth  prominently  in  all  ages  of  Chris- 
tianity— sometimes,  indeed,  with  a  dim  radi- 
ance like  that  of  a  light-house  glimmering  at 
midnight  upon  a  dark,  tempestuous  sea,  but 
sometimes  glowing  like  suns  in  the  heavens. 
In  taking  our  stand  upon  orthodox  and  evan- 
gelical views  as  fundamental,  we  are  sustained 
not  only  by  our  own  reason,  not  only  by  our  in- 
terpretation of  Scripture,  but  by  the  whole  past 
of  the  Christian  Church.  It  is,  therefore,  in 
no  spirit  of  arrogance,  in  no  want  of  the  largest 


12  CHARITY  AND   TRUTH. 

charity,  we  trust,  but  in  sincere  humility,  Avith 
a  willingness  to  be  led  first  of  all  by  the  Bible, 
and  then  by  the  voice  of  the  Christian  world  in 
all  ages,  that  we  feel  bound,  in  fidelity  to  the 
truth,  to  insist  upon  the  great  evangelical  doc- 
trines of  redemption  as  fundamental  in  the 
Christian  system. 

And  yet  I  think  we  may  have  been  justly 
chargeable  with  a  want  of  charity  toward  those 
who  differ  from  these  views,  by  failing  to  enter 
somewhat  into  their  views  of  things,  to  ascer- 
tain the  various  steps  by  which  they  have  ar- 
rived at  their  results,  and  to  construe  favorably 
certain  statements  which  j^erhaps  mean  some- 
thing to  us  very  different  from  their  original 
intent.  And  I  think  we  may  have  erred  greatly 
in  charging  certain  consequences,  which  they 
expressly  disown,  upon  the  opinions  of  men — 
for  this  is  one  of  the  most  glaring  violations  of 
charity.  A  system  itself  may  properly  be 
charged  with  any  consequences  with  which  we 
regard  it  as  logically  connected,  but  not  the 
men  by  whom  the  system  is  held.  They  are  to 
be  judged  by  the  views  which  they  avow,  not 
by  those  which  they  disown  and  reject. 


CEABITT  AND  TRUTH.  13 

I  doubt  also  whether  we  have  sufficiently  con- 
sidered those  circumstances  out  of  which  the 
Unitarian  movement,  for  witli  that  we  are  now 
specially  concerned,  took  its  rise,  and  the  pe- 
culiar aspect  of  Christianity  to  which  it  was  op- 
posed. At  a  time  when  Christian  doctrine 
scarcely  existed  in  New  England,  except  in  the 
most  rigid  Calvinistic  form,  there  was  a  natural 
reaction,  and  as  there  were  no  ancient  creeds 
or  liturgy  to  limit  this  reaction,  it  soon  assumed 
the  form  of  Pelagianism  of  the  most  decided 
type,  and  was  developed  into  the  Unitarianism 
of  New  England.  Now,  it  seems  to  me  that 
every  system  is  entitled  to  the  benefit,  if  such 
it  is,  of  being  considered  in  reference  to  that  to 
which  it  is  opposed.  I  yield  to  no  one  in  my 
admiration  for  that  lofty  and  uncompromising 
piety  which  has  been  fostered  under  the  sternest 
Calvinism  ;  but  I  cannot  wonder  that  when 
peaceful  and  prosperous  days  came  to  the  early 
New  England  Christians,  the  hearts  of  some 
yearned  for  a  faith  of  milder  and  more  attract- 
ive features.  The  old  Calvinism  of  our  fathers 
was  a  faith  which  seems  well  suited  to  the  hard- 
ships and  privations  of  their  lot.     It  invested 


14  CHARITY  AND   TRUTH. 

with  such  reality  and  life  the  covenant  relation 
between  God  and  the  believer,  and  so  concen- 
trated, as  it  were,  the  whole  compassion  and 
love  of  God  upon  the  little  body  of  the  faithful, 
that  it  is  no  wonder  that  they  clung  to  it  while 
want  and  suffering  compelled  them  to  wring 
from  religion  every  consolation  it  could  afford. 
This  system,  as  ib  was  held  by  our  fathers,  was 
like  some  of  our  own  New  England  mountains 
in  the  midst  of  wintry  storms — cold,  rugged,  im- 
movable masses  of  rock,  upon  which  a  thousand 
tempests  might  wreak  their  fury  in  vain.  But 
when  these  Avintry  days  passed  by,  what  wonder 
is  it  that  men  were  allured  by  the  smiling,  ge- 
nial landscape  of  the  valleys,  and  wandered 
away  until  they  found  themselves  at  last  be- 
wildered in  the  midst  of  barren  deserts  ? 

It  seems  to  me  also  uncharitable  to  withhold 
from  those  who  have  been  involved  in  the 
Unitarian  movement  the  praise  which  is  due  to 
great  pecuniary  liberality  and  to  general  kindli- 
ness of  disposition.  This  has  been,  I  freely  ad- 
mit, in  no  slight  degree  characteristic  of  those 
connected  with  this  system.  We  are  surrounded 
by  enduring  monuments  of  this  liberality,  and 


CHARITY  AND  TRUTH.  15 

this  kindliness,  in  ten  thousand  forms,  has  left 
its  memorials  in  innumerable  sorrowing  hearts 
which  it  has  comforted  and  relieved. 

In  considering  this  system,  and  particularly 
that  part  of  it  which  approaches  most  nearly  to 
evangelical  doctrine,  we  must,  in  charity,  it 
seems  to  me,  make  a  distinction  between  the 
faith  of  the  heart  and  the  head.  It  must  be,  of 
course,  upon  this  ground  that  we  believe  in  the 
Christian  character  of  those  who  do  not  specu- 
latively have  faith  in  Christ  as  a  divine  Saviour. 
I  doubt  not  that  there  is  the  want  of  this 
speculative  belief  on  the  part  of  multitudes, 
whose  hearts  trust  as  implicitly  as  ours  in  the 
sacrifice  and  intercession  of  a  Divine  Eedeemer. 
They  may  not  admit  this  idea  in  words,  and 
yet  their  Christian  life  is  kept  burning  and 
shining  by  that  eternal  fire  in  the  heart  which 
supreme  love  and  adoration  for  the  Lord  Jesus 
alone  could  have  kindled. 

But  with  such  charitable  dispositions,  and 
with  so  much  of  sympathy  in  reference  to  cer- 
tain phases  of  this  system,  what  difficulty  stands 
in  the  way  of  a  full  and  free  fellowship  so  far 
as  doctrine  is  concerned  ?    Why  not,  it  may  be 


16  CHARITY  AND   TRUTH. 

said,  "waive  these  points  of  doctrine  ?  But  here 
we  are  met  at  once  by  the  demands  of  what  we 
hold  to  be,  on  the  ground  of  reason,  of  Scrip- 
ture, and  the  testimony  of  all  ages  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church,  necessary  and  fundamental  truth. 
We  must  insist  upon  it ;  conscience  will  not  al- 
low us  to  waver  one  hair's  breadth  in  regard 
to  the  foundation  facts  of  Christianity  :  the 
Trinity  in  the  Godhead,  the  supremo  divinity 
and  expiatory  sacrifice  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  na- 
tive depravity  of  man,  and  the  regenerating  and 
sanctifying  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  Our  char- 
ity goes,  as  we  trust  we  have  shown,  where  these 
truths  are  denied.  Our  sympathies  are  called 
out  most  largely  and  warmly  toward  those  who 
are  working  their  way  to  a  recognition  of  them. 
We  are  glad  to  claim  fellowshij)  even  before  the 
language  of  such  comes  up  to  the  jDrecision  and 
explicitness  which  we  should  desire.  If  there 
is  any  holding  back  with  us,  it  is  when  the  real 
vital  point  is  wanting.  For  it  must  be  evident 
that  the  highest  view  which  may  be  taken  of 
the  character  of  Christ,  even  the  attributing  of 
divinity  to  him,  is  no  appreciable  approach  to 
our  position,  unless  he  is  distinctly  recognized 


CHARITY  AND  TRUTH.  17 

as  God,  and  the  possibility  of  his  being  God 
and  at  the  same  time  making  in  the  flesh  an  ex- 
piation for  our  sins,  found  in  the  personal  dis- 
tinction in  the  Godhead.  Since,  if  he  is  not 
really  and  truly  God,  however  lofty  may  be  his 
position,  he  is  still  a  created  being,  infinitely 
inferior,  therefore,  to  God,  and  no  proper  ob- 
ject for  our  adoration  and  supreme  love.  The 
strongest  language  which  can  be  used,  consis- 
tently with  such  a  view,  does  not  help  the  mat- 
ter.    We  feel  that  we  have  not  found  Christ. 

While  such  is  my  view  of  the  positive  and  im- 
perative demands  of  the  truth,  it  seems  to  me 
that  there  is  still  much  more  room  for  charity 
in  this  direction  than,  perhaps,  we  have  been  ac- 
customed to  suppose.  I  have  little  confidence 
in  the  efficacy  of  the  argument  with  Unitarians, 
as  it  has  been  usually  conducted.  It  rests  upon 
no  principles  which  we  hold  in  common.  A 
generous  appreciation  of  the  position  of  those 
who  differ  from  us,  together  with  evidences  of  a 
hearty  and  anxious  desire  on  our  part  that  they 
might  have  the  happiness  of  knowing  Christ  in 
all  the  glory  and  saving  power  with  which  he  is 
invested,  would  do  more  than  ten  thousand  ar- 


18  CHARITY  AND   TRUTH. 

guments  to  impress  them  favorably  toward  our 
views.  Argument  may  be  misunderstood.  A 
warm  and  generous  lieart,  filled  with  anxious  de- 
sire for  the  spiritual  welfare  of  others,  is  always 
recognized  and  felt. 

I  wish  to  say  a  few  words  in  reference  to  our 
relations  with  those  who  do  not  differ  from  us 
materially  in  point  of  doctrine,  but  who  hold 
entirely  different  views  in  respect  to  ecclesiasti- 
cal organization.  The  circumstances  which  call 
us  together  at  this  time  suggest  this  topic  ;  for 
this  ordination  consummates  not  only  a  change 
in  points  of  doctrine,  but  also  in  ecclesiastical 
relations.  It  is  a  profession,  not  only  of  ortho- 
dox doctrine,  but  also  of  adherence  to  the  Epis- 
copal Church.  I  for  one  am  very  anxious  that 
our  views  in  respect  to  the  organization  of  the 
Church  should  be  so  held  ^ad  stated  as  to 
conform  to  what  we  hold  to  be  the  truth,  and 
at  the  same  time  relieve  us  from  the  suspicion 
of  being  exclusive  and  uncharitable.  The 
points  in  our  principles  or  practice  which  are 
usually  objected  to  as  such  are  the  reordination 
of  those  who  have  not  been  episcopally  ordained, 
and  the  fact  that  we  do  not  invite  into  our  pul- 


CHARITY  AND  TRUTH.  19 

pits  those  who  have  not  received  episcopal  ordi- 
nation. This  has,  I  admit,  at  first  view,  tlie 
aspect  of  being  uncharitable  and  exclusive. 
But  we  are  certainly  entitled  to  claim  that,  in 
the  exercise  of  charity  toward  us,  the  nature 
and  reason  of  our  position  should  be  considered. 
We  believe  that  the  ministry,  as  constituted 
with  us,  is  apostolic  ;  that  is,  to  take  the  very 
lowest  view  of  it,  that  such  a  ministry  existed 
in  the  time  of  the  Apostles.  And  to  say  noth- 
ing more,  it  is  not  perfectly  clear,  as  I  under- 
stand it,  to  those  disagreeing  with  us  that  such 
was  not  the  case.  But  at  any  rate,  we  believe 
that  it  was  so.  Now,  there  is  nothing  unchari- 
table, certainly,  in  such  a  belief.  It  relates 
simply  to  a  question  of  historical  fact,  and  if  it 
obliges  us  to  the  pursuit  of  a  certain  course, 
that  course  cannot  be  uncharitable.  We  may 
hold  this  point  to  be  a  very  important  one  ;  we 
may  firmly  believe  that  the  preservation  of  the 
faith  is  connected  with  it  and  dependent  upon 
it.  But  how  can  we  express  our  adherence  to 
this  view,  except  by  our  practice  ;  and  how  by 
our  practice,  if  we  make  no  distinction  between 
a  ministry   which  does   conform  to  what  we 


20  CHARITY  AND   TRUTH. 

believe  to  be  the  apostolic  model  and  one  that 
does  not  ?  It  is  not  with  us,  as  is  often  sup- 
posed, a  mere  question  of  polity.  In  that  case 
we  admit  that  our  position  Avould  be  justly 
chargeable  with  excliisiveness.  But  it  is  a  ques- 
tion of  the  preservation  of  the  truth.  We  glad- 
ly recognize  the  presence  and  the  saving  influ- 
ence of  the  truth  in  other  Christian  bodies. 
Our  Church  has  never  denied  or  questioned  the 
validity  of  the  official  acts  of  ministers  of  the 
Gospel  not  episcopally  ordained.  We  make  no 
claims  to  a  ministry  more  learned,  more  holy, 
or  more  successful  than  that  of  others  ;  but  we 
do  claim  that  with  our  conscientious  conviction 
that  the  ministry  as  constituted  by  the  Apos- 
tles is  an  indispensable  means  to  the  most  im- 
portant end,  and  that,  although  the  truth  is 
now  to  be  found  elsewhere,  still  the  interests  of 
Christ's  kingdom,  in  the  succession  of  ages,  are 
bound  up  with  the  constitution  of  the  Church  ; 
we  do  claim,  I  say,  that  we  are  not  uncharitable 
in  putting  these  principles  into  practice,  and 
establishing  the  rule,  that  those  who  minister 
in  our  congregations  shall  be  episcopally  or- 
dained.    To  sanction  any  other  practice  would 


CHARITY  AND  TRUTH.  21 

be  to  deny  in  act  that  which  we  profess   in 
word. 

This  division  of  the  Christian  world,  and  of 
our  own  Church  also,  into  various  parties, 
sometimes  contending  so  bitterly  with  each 
other,  is  a  most  raehmcholy  spectacle,  and  one 
is  led  to  inquire  whether  it  must  always  be  so. 
Will  the  interests  of  the  truth  always  require 
these  divisions  and  mutual  jealousies  and  mis- 
understandings ?  If  so,  how  poor  a  preparation 
are  we  here  making  for  the  union  of  the  heav- 
enly world  !  I  think,  however,  that  we  may 
readily  detect  in  all  this  the  operation  of  a  law 
which  is  working  beneficially.  We  are  ap- 
proaching a  time,  I  firmly  believe,  when  those 
who  agree  at  all  will  agree  more  perfectly  ;  when 
systems  shall  have  worked  themselves  out  to 
their  results  ;  and  when  what  is  unessential 
shall  have  been  eliminated  in  the  process,  and 
the  great  body  of  believers  shall  be  found  gath- 
ered around  the  few  f  andamental  principles  of 
the  Gospel.  But  that  time  is  not  yet.  And 
still,  while  we  see  how  far  we  are  from  such  a 
state  of  things,  we  may  see  how  it  is  that  even 
parties  and  party  spirit  are  working  to  that 


32      ^  CHARITY  AND  TRUTH. 

end.  A  simple  love  for  the  truth  and  a  noble 
spirib  of  charity  are  what  must  be  secured  be- 
fore that  end  is  attained.  And  in  the  meantime 
these  very  parties  and  factions,  under  God's  prov- 
idence are  carrying  things  forward  in  that  di- 
rection. No  one  will  claim  that  the  best  re- 
sults, in  Church  or  in  State  have  been  brought 
about  by  the  success  of  the  views  of  one  or 
another  party,  but  by  the  action  and  reaction  of 
one  upon  the  other.  So  that  it  is  unquestion- 
ably a  fact  that  better  results  have  on  the  whole 
been  obtained  by  the  combined  action  of  these 
various  parties,  than  if  one,  however  pure,  had 
directed  and  controlled  the  movement  alone. 
And  that  is  simply  to  say  that  God  is  wiser 
than  any  or  all  of  those  whom  he  employs  as 
his  instruments  in  the  Avorld. 

I  trust  it  will  not  be  thought  irrelevant  if,  in 
conclusion,  I  endeavor  to  point  out  some  re- 
spects in  which,  in  my  judgment,  our  own 
Church  is  favorably  situated  in  reference  to  the 
desire  which  prevails  for  more  of  unity  among 
the  followers  of  Christ.  I  fear,  indeed,  that 
any  practical  results  in  that  direction  are  still 
far  distant,  but  it  is  not  in  vain,  it  seems  to  me. 


CHARITY  AND  TRUTH.  23 

that  the  subject  is  agitated  even  now.  I  am 
glad,  at  all  events,  of  the  opportunity  of  speak- 
ing a  word  which  has  for  its  ol)ject  the  bring- 
ing more  nearly  together  of  those  who  love  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

On  a  moment's  reflection  we  shall  see  that 
our  own  Church  can  meet,  as  no  other  Christian 
body  can,  tliis  longing  for  union  of  which  I 
have  spoken.  If  there  is  to  be  a  union  of 
Christian  people,  it  must  be  upon  some  basis 
of  truth  admitted  by  all  and  recognized  as 
fundamentally  necessary.  To  have  no  doc- 
trinal basis  whatever,  no  creed  at  all,  is  lib- 
eral indeed  ;  but  it  is  so  liberal  that  it  reaches 
beyond  Christianity,  and  may  include  the  infi- 
del, the  Jew,  the  Mohammedan,  The  system 
ceases  to  be  necessarily  Christian,  when  it  dis- 
owns a  creed.  To  say  that  the  Bible  is  the 
creed  and  the  only  creed  helps  the  matter 
somewhat,  to  be  sure,  but  we  soon  find  that  the 
question  comes  up  as  to  the  authority  of  the  Bi- 
ble, or  as  to  what  constitutes  the  Bible.  The 
system  cannot  pronounce  decisively  upon  these 
points  without  violating  its  principle  of  not 
having  any  creed.     It  must  leave  every  one  not 


34  CHABITT  AND  TRU2H. 

only  to  his  own  interpretation  of  the  Bible,  but 
to  determine  also  what  his  Bible  shall  be  ;  and 
thus,  it  is  evident,  the  whole  superstructure  of 
Christianity  may  be  swept  away.  I  have  known 
men  who  claimed  to  have  no  creed  but  the  Bi- 
ble, and  yet  who  considered  only  three  chapters 
in  the  whole  Bible  as  of  divine  authority.  It 
is  evident,  therefore,  that  those  who  reject 
creeds  altogether  cannot  furnish  a  basis  for  the 
union  of  Christians. 

Then,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  the  diffi- 
culty which  is  the  opposite  of  this.  There  are 
others  who  have  creeds,  but  who  have  incorpo- 
rated into  them  certain  articles  which  they  hold, 
indeed,  as  desirable  to  be  believed,  but  which 
even  they  themselves  do  not  hold  to  be  essential 
to  Christian  faith.  Such  articles  are  those 
which  relate  to  the  relation  between  the  sov- 
ereignty of  God  and  the  agency  of  man,  or  to 
the  proper  subjects  for  baptism,  etc.,  about 
which,  as  all  agree.  Christians  may  differ.  But 
just  so  soon  as  a  number  of  Christians  associate 
themselves  together  and  establish  as  a  test  oi 
communion  with  them  a  belief  in  certain  arti- 
cles, some  of  which  they  themselves  admit  not 


CHARITY  AND  TRUTH.  25 

to  be  essential  to  Christian  faith,  just  so  soon 
do  they  depart  from  the  true  idea  of  a  Church  of 
Christ,  since  their  terms  of  communion  exclude 
some  whom  Christ  himself  has  received.  Their 
basis  excludes  the  infidel,  it  is  true,  but  it  ex- 
cludes many  a  Christian  also,  and  cannot,  there- 
fore, furnish  a  basis  of  union  among  those  who 
are  the  followers  of  Christ. 

Now,  notice  for  a  moment  the  position  of  our 
own  Church  in  reference  to  this  matter.  Have 
we  not,  in  the  providence  of  God,  a  basis  for 
union  in  a  creed  at  once  comprehensive  and 
fundamental  ;  so  as  to  exclude  everything  out- 
side of  Christianity,  and  include  everything 
within  it  ?  Wo  require  belief  only  in  those  few 
fundamental  facts  of  Christianity  which  are  de- 
clared in  the  Apostles'  creed.  The  clergy,  in- 
deed, are  required  to  subscribe  the  Thirty-Nine 
Articles,  but  not  so  the  people.  The  creed  of 
our  Church  is  the  simple  creed  of  the  Church 
in  all  ages,  distinctive  as  Christianity  itself, 
and  yet  comprehending  every  form  and  variety 
of  Christian  development.  Here,  then,  and 
here  only,  is  to  be  found,  in  this  community,  a 
Church  which  can  satisfy  this  longing  and  rest- 


26  CHARITY  AND   TRUTH. 

less  striving  after  Christian  union.  It  is  the 
Church  which  the  masses  need,  and  toward 
which  they  must  necessarily  tend  when  its  true 
position  and  character  are  once  understood. 
Whoever,  then,  is  a  friend  to  union  among  the 
followers  of  Christ,  let  him  ask  himself  if  there 
is  anywhere  so  good  a  prospect  of  its  promotion 
as  in  our  own  Church.  I  set  aside  now  all 
claims  as  to  the  divine  or  even  apostolic  origin 
of  our  organization.  I  say  nothing  about  that, 
but  if  you  desire  that  the  people  of  Christ 
should  be  one,  so  as  to  oppose  one  common 
front  to  the  power  of  sin  and  death,  then  I  ask 
you  solemnly  to  consider  whether  such  a  con- 
summation is  possible  except  upon  the  basis  of 
a  creed  like  ours,  which  excludes  all  who  do  not 
hold  what  is  universally  admitted  to  be  the 
Christian  faith,  and  includes  all  who  do. 

But  in  connection  with  this  desire  for  union, 
there  is  springing  up  everywhere  a  desire  for 
something  which  will  secure  the  permanence 
and  stability  of  Christian  faith.  One  great 
cause  of  this  want  of  permanence  is  to  be  found 
in  these  very  divisions  which  we  have  been  con- 
sidering.    The  consequence  of  having  no  creed 


CHARITY  AND  TRUTH.  27 

is  the  drifting  off  of  certain  portions,  at  least, 
of  tlie  body  toward  infidelity  ;  and  the  conse- 
quence of  having  too  minute  and  particular  a 
creed  is  that  any  variation  from  it  must  be  fol- 
lowed by  separation  from  the  body  by  which  it 
is  held.  And  so  the  process  of  division  goes  on 
until  men  find  it  hard  to  tell  Avhat  is  funda- 
mental, since  every  variety  of  religious  opinion 
is  represented  by  some  Christian  sect.  Now 
there  is  this  peculiarity  of  the  position  of  the 
Church  which  fits  it  to  secure  the  permanence 
and  stability  of  Christian  truth.  It  has  the 
most  powerful  conservative  influences,  and  yet, 
at  the  same  time,  it  admits  without  difficulty 
schools  of  doctrine  which,  in  any  other  system, 
must  be  followed  by  the  endless  process  of  di- 
vision. We  all  know  that  the  Calvinist  and  the 
Arminian,  the  Baptist  and  the  Psedobaj)tist, 
those  who  hold  high  views  and  those  who  hold 
low  views  of  the  Sacraments,  may  all  find  a 
home  in  the  Church  ;  while  at  the  same  time 
the  Church,  unshaken  by  these  various  and 
conflicting  systems,  holds  forth  in  lier  liturgy 
and  creeds  the  fundamental  truths  of  Chris- 
tianity, and  proclaiming  the  remission  of  sins  by 


28  CHARITY  AND   TRUTH. 

faith  in  Jesus  Christ,  passes  on  unchanged 
through  the  succeeding  generations  of  the 
world. 

Let  me  say  a  word  in  reference  to  the  need 
which  exists  for  more  of  reverence  and  dignity 
in  the  services  of  the  sanctuary,  and  to  the  con- 
viction v/hich  is  hecoming  quite  prevalent  that 
these  are  to  be  secured  only  by  liturgical  wor- 
ship. The  taste  and  sober  sense  of  the  commu- 
nity are  slowly  working  toward  this  result. 
Now,  suppose  that  a  taste  for  liturgical  worship 
becomes  very  general,  vfhere  is  a  liturgy  that 
will  be  at  all  satisfactory  to  be  found  except  that 
of  the  Episcopal  Ch arch?  Other  liturgies  are 
admitted  to  be  defective,  by  those  who  compile 
them,  just  so  far  as  they  differ  from  that  of  tbe 
Church.  It  is  impossible  that  any  other  can 
have  the  impressiveness  of  this,  since  none 
other  can  possibly  have  its  associations.  There 
is  no  other  liturgy  which  has  come  down  to  us 
with  the  accumulated  wealth  of  the  associations 
of  every  Christian  age,  none  other  which  has 
about  it  the  precious  savor  of  the  piety  of  the 
confessors  and  martyrs  and  apostles  of  the 
Church.     This  is  an  advantasfe  Avhich  no  one 


CHARITY  AND  TRUTH.  29 

pretends  to  deny,  and.  which  the  Church  alone 
possesses. 

I  wish  finally  to  say  that  it  is  my  deep  con- 
viction that  the  system  and  methods  of  our 
Church  are  favorable  to  union  among  Chris- 
tians, since  it  is  "by  them  that  the  prevalent  in- 
fidelity of  the  day  may  be  most  successfully  met 
and  resisted.  This  infidelity  presents  itself  in 
three  principal  forms,  first,  that  of  the  joositive 
philosophy,  which  denies  certainty  to  any 
knowledge  but  that  of  phenomena,  and.  which 
would  limit  all  man's  thoughts  and  efforts 
and  aspirations  to  the  visible  and  tangible 
things  by  which  we  are  surrounded  ;  then  that 
which  denies  the  supernaturalism  of  Christiani- 
ty and  resolves  its  wondrous  miracles  into  nat- 
ural events  or  mythical  narrations  ;  and  then 
that  of  Pantheism,  the  worship  of  nature  or 
of  heroes,  and  the  foundation  of  that  direful 
doctrine  of  the  necessary  progress  of  the  hu- 
man race,  by  which  it  passes,  under  the  opera- 
tion of  irresistible  laws,  through  one  form  after 
another  of  religious  belief,  until  Christianity 
itself  shall  give  place  at  last  to  a  higher  reli- 
gion.    Then  there  is  the  amazing  imposture  or 


30  CHARITY  AND   TRUTH. 

delusion  of  Spiritualism,  that  strange  mingling 
of  fanaticism  and  shrewd  calculation,  the 
facts  of  which  are  to  be  found  either  in  skil- 
ful jugglery  or  the  effects  of  natiiral  laws  as  yet 
imperfectly  understood.  All  those  are  hostile 
to  the  true  progress  and  well-being  of  society, 
are  hostile  to  morals  and  to  the  purity  and  hap- 
piness of  social  relations,  are  fatal  to  the  true 
dignity  and  excellence  of  man,  and  leave  him  in 
his  guilt,  without  a  Saviour  or  the  hope  of  ever- 
lasting life. 

Now,  every  one  who  wishes  well  to  his  coun- 
try, and  desires  the  salvation  of  men,  must  be 
anxious  to  know  in  what  way  this  fearful  onset 
of  infidelity  may  be  rolled  back.  To  meet  these 
various  systems  by  argument  seems  to  me  to  be 
doing  but  little  to  accomplish  the  result.  "What 
we  want  is  something  which  will  have  a  silent 
and  constant  influence  in  the  community,  some 
system  of  things  visible  and  audible,  to  be  seen 
and  heard  of  men  at  all  times,  and  which,  as 
monuments  of  great  historic  events  keep  alive 
the  sentiment  of  patriotism,  may  by-  its  presence 
teach  the  great  lessons  of  religion.  We  want 
some  system  in  the  community  which  in  its  or- 


CUARITY  AND  TRUTH  31 

der  and  arrangements  assumes  the  great  facts  of 
Christianit}'-,  and  thus  impresses  them  upon  tlie 
mind.  Wo  have  such  a  system  in  tlie  Churcli, 
and  all  will  admit  that  it  is  not  elsewhere  to 
be  found.  It  is  our  whole  tendency  to  present 
the  Church  both  as  spiritual  and  visible  ;  it  is 
the  whole  tendency  of  other  Christians  to  pre- 
sent it  as  sj)iritual  alone.  The  facts  of  Christi- 
anity are,  so  to  speak,  crystallized  in  the  services 
of  the  Church  into  a  permanent  form.  No  one 
can  tell  the  incalculable  influence  of  such  a  sys- 
tem in  its  ceaseless  testimony  to  the  truth. 
More  powerful  than  any  argument  or  any  ap- 
peal or  any  teaching,  it  moves  irresistibly  the 
minds  of  those  who  are  unconscious  of  its  in- 
fluence. Let  us  have  a  great  institution  per- 
vading society,  in  which  the  fundamental  facts 
of  Christianity  have  clothed  themselves  with 
forms,  and  let  this  institution  be  ever  visibly 
and  audibly  present,  having  innumerable  re- 
lations with  the  life  of  men,  and  we  need  have 
no  fear  of  national  apostasy  and  may  laugli 
infidelity  to  scorn. 

There  is  no  time  now  to  speak  of  the  conces- 
sions which    we  miglifc  be  willing  to  make  to 


32  CHARITY  AND   TRUTH. 

bring  about  any  practical  nnion  among  Chris- 
tians. For  my  part  I  should  consider  any  con- 
cession for  such  a  purpose  as  a  small  sacrifice, 
^^nless  it  stood  very  near  the  truth  as  it  is  in 
Christ  Jesus.  Charity  rejoices  in  that  truth. 
There  may  be  concessions  and  compromises 
everywhere  else,  but  not  there.  This  truth,  and 
"whatever  is  essential  to  it,  must  be  maintained. 
We  feel  strong  and  confident  upon  such  ground 
as  this.  Elsewhere  we  may  have  doubts  and 
perj)lexities,  but  here  the  evidences  accumulate 
with  such  vast  comprehensiveness  and  manifold 
relations  that  no  room  is  left  with  us  for  doubt. 
Nature,  God's  Word,  our  own  consciousness  and 
hearts,  the  history  of  Christianity,  the  history 
of  the  world,  all  cast  their  rays  upon  one  com- 
»mon  centre,  the  cross  of  Christ,  and  from  that 
sacred  spot  beams  forth  all  the  light  which  has 
dispelled  the  shadows  of  this  fallen  world. 
From  the  darkness  of  the  sepulchre,  the  Sun  of 
Eighteousness  arose  to  enlighten  and  revive  the 
earth.  That  we  are  sinners,  utterly  helpless  in 
ourselves,  is  a  fact  of  which,  alas  !  we  can  en- 
tertain no  doubt  ;  that  Christ  is  an  Almighty 
Saviour,  we  also,  with  all  the  powers  of  our  be- 


CHARITY  AND  TRUTH.  33 

ing,  firmly  believe,  and  it  is  our  only  hope  o 
final  rest  and  happiness  in  the  heavenly  world. 

My  Dear  Brother  :  You  are  now  to  be 
commissioned  to  proclaim  among  us  this  only 
foundation  for  our  hope  of  eternal  life.  I 
doubt  not  you  have  endeavored,  through  your 
whole  ministerial  career,  to  preach  faithfully  to 
sinful  men,  that  they  might  be  brought  into  the 
ways  of  holiness  and  prepared  for  the  heavenly 
world.  But  a  necessity  has  been  laid  upon  you 
like  that  which  was  laid  upon  the  Apostle  Paul, 
when  he  said,  "  Yea,  woe  is  me  if  I  preach  not 
the  Gospel."  You  have,  by  the  experiences  of 
your  own  heart  as  well  as  by  the  diligent  study 
of  God's  word,  been  brought  to  see  the  truth 
as  it  is  in  Jesus,  and,  after  many  doubts  and 
fears,  have  rested  in  a  conviction,  as  firm  and 
lasting,  I  trust,  as  your  immortality,  that  Christ 
is  our  Almighty  Saviour  and  Eedeemer,  to  be 
loved  with  no  second  love,  but  to  be  the  object 
of  our  supreme  affection  and  adoration.  I  can- 
not take  it  upon  myself  to  counsel  you  in  refer- 
ence to  duties  and  responsibilities  with  which 
you  are  more  familiar  than  I  ;  but  I  can  express 


34  CHARITY  AND   TRUTH. 

to  you  the  hearty  sympathy,  good-will  and  love 
of  those  among  whom  you  enter  to-day  as  your 
brethren.  And  yet  suffer  me  to  say  a  word  in 
regard  to  the  responsibilities  of  your  work.  It 
is  a  solemn  thing,  my  brother,  to  be  placed  in 
the  charge  of  immortal  souls.  There  are  many 
discouragements,  many  temptations  to  draw  us 
from  our  dutj".  But  remember  that  the  time  is 
short,  and  that  the  lips  which  proclaim  the 
blessed  news  of  eternal  life  will  ere  long  be 
closed  and  liushed  in  the  silence  of  the  tomb. 
When  we  think  of  this  we  cannot  be  indifferent 
and  unfaithful  in  our  work.  And  it  is  a  blessed 
thought,  familiar,  I  know,  to  your  own  heart, 
that  in  all  our  difficulties  and  trials,  Christ  is 
with  us,  and  is  touched  with  the  feeling  of  our 
infirmities. 

"  I  charge  thee,  therefore,  before  God  and 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  who  shall  judge  the 
quick  and  the  dead  at  his  apy)earing  and  his 
kingdom,  preach  the  Word,  be  instant  in  sea- 
son, out  of  season  ;  reprove,  rebuke,  exhort  with 
all  long-suffering  and  doctrine.  .  .  .  Watch 
thou  in  all  things,  endure  afflictions,  do  the 
work  of  an  evangelist,  make  full  proof  of  thy 


CHARITY  AND  TRUTH.  35 

ministry."  And  when  the  hour  of  your  depar- 
ture draws  near,  may  the  remembrance  of  many 
souls  ah'eady  saved,  and  many  more  yet  to  be 
saved  through  your  ministry,  comfort  and  sus- 
tain you  with  the  blessed  assurance  that  the 
grace  of  Christ  has  been  sufficient  for  you  ;  and 
may  you  be  able  in  humble  and  yet  full  assur- 
ance to  exclaim  with  the  Apostle,  "  I  have 
fought  a  good  fight,  I  have  finished  my  course  ; 
I  have  kept  the  faith.  Henceforth  there  is  laid 
up  for  me  a  crown  of  righteousness,  which  the 
Lord,  the  righteous  Judge,  shall  give  me  at 
that  day." 


THE    LITURGY 


OHRISTIA]^    UE"IOI:T. 


Preached  in"  Trinity  Chapel,  New  York, 
Feb.  21,  1864. 

"  Mine  house  shall  be  called  an  house  of  prayer  for  all 
people." — IsAiAU  56  :  7. 

My  subject  —  The  Liturgy  in  its  Rela- 
tions TO  Christian  Union  —  leads  me  to 
speak  of  those  features  of  the  Liturgy  which 
adapt  it  to  be  a  form  of  prayer  for  all  people, 
and  to  promote  that  unity  among  Christiana 
for  which  our  Saviour  prayed. 

The  evils  of  division  among  Christians  are 
so  apparent  and  terrible  that  it  is  high  time 
the  subject  of  Christian  Union  received  more 
serious  consideration.  We  need  the  concurrent 
views  of  many  observers  at  different  points  of 


38  THE  LITURGY 

observation  ;  and  as  astronomers,  gazing  into 
the  starry  heavens  from  their  many  watch-tow- 
ers, i^enetrate  at  hist  the  secrets  of  the  order 
and  harmony  of  the  universe,  so  shall  Ave,  by 
diligent  comparison,  arrive,  perhaps,  at  the 
great  laws  of  unity  whicli  must  prevail  in  the 
visible  kingdom  of  Christ. 

That  there  are  such  laws  we  cannot  doubt. 
To  deny  it  would  be  to  affirm  that  the  ideal 
Christian  Church,  toward  which  the  actual 
manifestation  of  it  in  the  world  must  con- 
stantly tend,  is  out  of  all  analogy  with  every 
other  department  in  the  universe.  The  most 
minute  and  apparently  isolated  facts  resolve 
themselves  into  systems  ;  these  systems,  again, 
are  bound  together  in  still  wider  systems  ;  com- 
plex laws,  as  we  ascend  higher  in  the  scale  of 
being,  unfold  their  complex  operations  and 
assume  simpler  forms,  and  so  we  go  from  in- 
finite diversity  to  a  higher  and  higher  unity, 
until  we  find  one  universe  in  one  God. 

This  unity,  we  should  naturally  suppose, 
also,  must  be  the  final  consummation  of  the 
Church  on  earth  ;  for  the  nearer  we  come  to 
Christ  in  spiritual  experience,  the  nearer  shall 


AND  CHRISTIAN   UNION.  39 

we  bo  to  the  spirit  which  prevailed  when  the 
Church,  springing  from  beneath  his  feet  as  he 
ascended  into  heaven,  was  one.  And  this  nat- 
ural expectation  ripens  into  confidence  when 
we  catch  the  tones  of  that  wonderful  prayer 
which  our  great  High  Priest  offered  for  us  as 
he  was  about  to  ascend  the  altar  of  sacrifice, 
"  That  they  all  may  be  one,  even  as  thou  art 
in  me  and  I  in  thee,  that  they  also  may  be 
one  in  us." 

This  unity,  if  once  attained,  would  naturally 
express  itself  in  common  worship.  It  is  a 
question,  therefore,  which  it  becomes  us  to  con- 
sider, what  form  this  common  worship  would 
most  reasonably  be  expected  to  assume.  Each 
one  of  the  many  divisions  of  Christendom 
should  consider  this  in  relation  to  the  peculiar 
form  which  is  used  by  itself.  This  I  purpose 
now  doing  in  regard  to  the  Liturgy,  that  wo 
may  see  how  far  it  is  fitted  to  be  a  common 
prayer  for  all  people,  and  hoAv  far  its  adoption 
is  therefore  calculated  to  promote  the  unity  we 
desire. 

The  one  great  indispensable  characteristic 
which  such  a  form  must  possess  is  iiniversaUty. 


40  THE  LITURGY 

Let  us  see,  then,  what  claims  the  Liturgy  has 
to  universality  : 

I.  In  its  origin  and  the  process  of  its  growth. 

11.  In  its  harmony  with  and  adaptation    to 
human  nature. 

III.  In  the  possibility  of  its  use  among  all  di- 
versities of  religious  opinion,  where  fun- 
damental truth  is  held. 

I.  In  the  first  place,  then,  we  are  to  consider 
its  universality  in  its  origin  and  the  process  of 
its  growth. 

It  may  seem  to  savor  somewhat  of  self-glory 
for  those  of  us  who  enjoy  the  use  of  the  Litur- 
gy to  enlarge  upon  its  excellence  and  its  adap- 
tation to  all  people  ;  but  it  must  be  remember- 
ed that  the  Liturgy  is  not  the  result  of  our 
wisdom  or  choice.  We  did  not  make  it ;  we 
find  ourselves  in  possession  of  it,  a  heritage 
handed  down  to  us  from  the  great  past.  We 
are  considering,  let  it  be  remembered,  iJie  Lit- 
urgy— tJie  Christian  Liturgy — a  term  which, 
in  ecclesiastical  history,  has  a  meaning  so  dis- 
tinct that  it  is  impossible  to  mistake  it.     We 


AND  CHRISTIAN  UNION.  41 

find  through  the  whole  of  history  one  li- 
turgical type  prevailing  under  a  vast  num- 
ber of  modifications.  In  different  parts  of 
the  Christian  world  we  find  Liturgies  pecu- 
liar to  each  locality,  but  all  adhering  with 
fidelity  to  the  universal  type,  and  there- 
fore all  constituting  only  different  and  slight- 
ly varied  forms  of  the  one  Christian  Lit- 
urgy. The  existence  of  four  great  Liturgies 
in  early  times,  bearing  the  names  respectively 
of  St.  Peter,  St.  James,  St.  Mark,  and  St. 
John,  closely  resembling  each  other,  indicates 
one  primitive  liturgical  type  from  which 
they  sprang.  The  successive  developments  of 
Christian  doctrine  left  their  impress  upon  the 
Liturgy  in  these  principal,  or  in  other  minor 
forms.  The  Liturgy  of  St.  John,  received 
originally  in  the  British  Isles,  v/as  modified  by 
the  then  pure  Liturgy  of  the  Western  Church. 
At  last,  but  only  a  few  hundred  years  before 
the  Reformation,  the  primitive  liturgical  form 
was  corrupted.  The  great  work  of  the  Refor- 
mation in  England,  after  opening  the  Scriptures 
to  the  common  people,  was  to  restore  the  prim- 
itive type  of  the  Christian  Liturgy.     We  have. 


42  THE  LITURGY 

therefore,  in  tlie  Liturgy  wliicli  our  Church 
uses  to-day,  essentially  tlie  type  and  form  of 
the  universal  Liturgy,  springing,  like  a  majes- 
tic tree,  from  Apostolic  soil,  and  Avidening  the 
vast  sweep  of  its  branches  over  the  Christian 
world. 

Such  being  the  origin  and.  growth  of  the 
Liturgy,  it  is  easy  to  see  what  elements  of  uni- 
versality have  entered  into  it,  as  it  has  come 
down  through  the  ages.  While  the  original 
type  has  been  faithfully  preserved,  each  great 
epoch  in  the  Church  has  touched  the  Liturgy 
with  a  living  power,  blotting  out  details  of 
light  or  shade  not  in  harmony  with  the  whole, 
and.  adding  new  and  still  more  attractive  hues. 
We  have  glanced  already  at  the  bare  external 
facts  of  its  history,  so  as  to  catch  some  idea  of 
the  law  and  method  of  its  growth.  But  we 
shall  have  a  deeper  impression  of  its  universal 
character,  if  we  see  to  what  formative  influ- 
ences it  has  been  subjected,  and  how  wonder- 
fully it  has  come  in  contact  with  and  been 
moulded  by  the  vast  experience  and  develop- 
ment of  the  Christian  Church.     We  first  find 


AND  CIIRI^^TIAN  UNION.  43 

it   a,   pure   unci  sweet  fountain,   sjoringing   up 
from  apostolic  depths,,  like 

"  Silua's  brook  tliaL  flowed 
Fast  by  the  oracle  of  God." 

As  it  flows  on  through  the  generations,  like 
the  river  of  Eden,  it  is  divided  "  into  four 
heads."  One,  reflecting  the  gorgeous  hues  of 
the  East,  bears  the  name  of  the  martyr  Bishop 
and  Saint  of  Jerusalem.  Another,  warmed 
by  the  suns  and  glowing  sands  of  Africa,  and 
by  its  genial  heat  alone  keeping  the  life-blood 
in  cold  and  decrej^it  Churches,  has  come  down 
to  us  with  the  character  and  traditions  of  the 
second  evangelist.  The  third,  a  grand,  impet- 
uous stream,  like  the  great  apostle  whose  name 
it  bears,  is  destined  to  flow  down  through  the 
Roman  civilization,  and  bathe  the  shores  of 
Latin  Christendom  through  all  their  vast  ex- 
tent. The  last,  rising  in  the  East,  peaceful 
and  serene,  like  the  gentle  disci jjle  whom  Jesus 
loved,  flows  to  the  distant  West.  From 
thence,  with  the  consecration  of  the  martyr- 
blood  of  Gaul,  it  finds  its  tranquil  way  to  the 
British   Isles,  and    mingling   at  last   with  the 


44  THE  LITUROT 

swelling  tide  which  comes  pouring  down 
through  the  Latin  Church,  in  one  broad  stream, 
bearing  upon  its  bosom  the  riches  of  all  the 
generations  through  which  it  has  flowed,  it 
sweeps  majestically  on  through  the  present  age 
to  the  vast  millennial  sea. 

In  the  i^rocGSS  of  development  through  which 
the  Liturgy  has  passed,  it  has  been  enriched  by 
the  spoils  of  each  great  victory  which  the 
Cliurch  has  gained  over  the  hosts  of  error. 
The  conflict  with  the  Arian  heresy  gave  to  the 
Liturgy  the  Nicene  Creed,  and  the  creed  which 
bears  the  great  name  of  Athanasius.  The 
mighty  warfare  carried  on  by  Augustine  against 
Pelagius  brought  out  from  the  treasury  of  the 
Scriptures  many  a  truth  as  to  the  corruption 
and  helplessness  of  our  nature,  which  has 
found  its  way  into  the  Liturgy,  in  the  form  of 
supplication  or  praise.  The  victories  of 
Anselm,  in  rescuing  from  the  grasp  of  error 
and  bestowing  upon  the  Church  a  full  and 
compact  doctrine  of  the  Atonement,  can  be 
traced  in  subsequent  additions  and  omissions, 
recognizing  the  sole  merit  of  Christ ;  and  in 
the  terrible  contest  with  Rome,  in  the  sixteenth 


AND  CHRISTIAN  UNION.  45 

century,  the  martyr-fires  consumed  the  base 
alloy  which  the  last  few  hundred  years  had  add- 
ed, and  left  the  pure  gold  of  primitive  and 
Apostolic  truth. 

The  product  of  such  an  origin  and  such  a 
growth,  enriched  through  its  Avhole  develop- 
ment by  such  elements  of  universality,  must 
have  broad  and  deep  relations  to  human  na- 
ture ;  and  this  leads  us  to  the  consideration  of 
the  second  point. 

11.  The  universality  of  the  Liturgy  in  its  re- 
lations to  human  nature. 

It  grows  out  of  the  very  fact  of  the  univer- 
sality of  its  origin  and  growth  that  the  Liturgy 
should  be  in  harmony  with  the  universal  ele- 
ments, experiences  and  wants  of  our  nature. 
Whatever  has  been  merely  temporary  and  acci- 
dental in  the  history  of  the  Christian  Church, 
if  it  has  embodied  itself  at  all  in  the  Liturgy, 
has,  by  the  peculiar  jorocess  to  which  the  Lit- 
urgy has  been  subjected,  been  finally  thrown 
off,  and  only  those  features  v;hich  are  of  uni- 
versal interest  and  application  have  remained. 
For  it  is  evident  that  only  that  which  found  an 
echo  in  the  heart  of  generation  after  generation 


46  THE  LITURGY 

would  be  introduced,  or,  if  introduced,  retain 
its  place.  The  Liturgy  is  accordingly  the  em- 
bodiment of  the  Christian  instinct  of  worship. 
If  through  all  those  ages  in  which  the  Liturgy 
has  been  used,  beginning  with  Apostolic  times, 
and  reaching  down  through  the  period  of  the 
Eeformation  to  our  own  day,  there  has  been  a 
realization  of  the  spiritual  wants  of  man,  a  true 
idea  of  the  great  facts  of  redemption,  then  in 
the  Liturgy  we  necessarily  have  the  recognition 
of  those  wants  and  the  presentation  of  those  re- 
demptive facts.  And  it  can  hardly  be  supposed 
that  in  all  that  vast  period,  and  amid  such  rich 
and  varied  influences,  there  is  a  single  spiritual 
want  which  has  not  found  expression,  or  a  sin- 
gle fact  of  the  great  plan  of  redemption  which 
has  not  been  set  forth  in  all  its  saving  power. 
It  is  to  be  remembered  that  we  have  had  all 
this  time  two  constant  factors.  Human  nature 
has  been  the  same,  and  the  \Aqx\  of  redemption 
has  been  the  same,  revealed  as  fully,  in  all  its 
facts,  at  first  as  now.  Worship,  which  is  the 
utterance  of  human  nature  under  the  in- 
fluence of  these  facts,  must,  in  the  course  of 
time,   utter  every  possible  experience    of  the 


AND  CHBT8TIAN  UNION.  47 

sou],  as  moved  by  every  conceivable  aspect  of 
the  revelation  of  God.  Now,  these  utterances 
of  worship  have  been  registered  in  tlie  Liturgy, 
and  all  our  profound  experiences,  the  most  del- 
icate touches  of  feeling,  the  loftiest  aspirations 
of  the  spirit,  have  been  crystallized,  so  to  speak, 
in  a  permanent  and  symmetrical  form. 

But  there  is  more  than  this  in  its  universal 
harmony  with  and  adaptation  to  human  na- 
ture. If  we  analyze  our  mental  and  moral 
being,  we  shall  find  how  wonderfully  the  Lit- 
urgy stands  related  to  that  being  in  all  t!ie 
principal  aspects  in  which  it  can  be  regarded. 

Take  first  the  intellect.  It  is  not  too 
much  to  claim  that  the  Liturgy  has  the  great 
characteristics  of  a  work  of  genius,  embodying 
the  highest  powers  and  adapted  to  satisfy  the 
largest  requirements  of  the  intellect.  It  is  not 
necessary  that  a  work  of  genius  should  be  the 
product  of  one  mind.  Indeed,  the  grandest  re- 
sults of  genius  are  the  products  of  the  universal 
mind  of  the  race.  The  British  Constitution  is 
thus  one  of  the  most  amazing  works  of  genius, 
and  yet  it  is  the  product  of  the  whole  English 
mind.     Neither  is  it  necessary  that  tlie  produc- 


48  THE  LITURGY 

tion  of  a  work  of  genius  should  be  a  conscious 
operation  contemplating  the  final  result.  It 
has  been  said  of  the  great  architects  who,  from 
generation  to  generation,  built  up  the  mighty 
cathedrals  of  Europe,  Avorking  under  the  inspi- 
ration of  an  instinct  higher  than  themselves, 
"  They  builded  wiser  than  they  knew."  And 
so  this  work  of  the  ages  is  the  unconscious  pro- 
duct of  the  instinct  of  the  Church,  and  has  the 
fullest  characteristic  of  a  work  of  genius.  For 
what  is  it  that  we  find  in  a  Avork  of  genius  ? 
Its  chief  characteristic  is  that  it  is  organic — a 
creation — the  expression  of  some  central  idea 
working  itself  out  in  every  minutest  part. 
Every  portion  of  such  a  work  must  be  vitally 
related  to  every  other  portion,  and  there  must 
be  a  unity  in  and  through  them  all.  It  is  also 
true  of  the  higliest  products  of  genius,  that  the 
great  archetypal  idea  is  repeated  constantly  in 
higher  and  higher  forms,  just  as  the  same  type 
runs  on  through  all  the  processes  of  creation, 
but  becoming  more  beautiful  and  wonderful  at 
each  successive  stage.  Let  us  look  at  the  Lit- 
urgy and  see  if  it  has  these  characteristics.  We 
liave  evidently  a  great  central  idea  as  the  vitaliz 


AND  CHRISTIAN  UNION.  49 

ing  principle  of  the  whole— the  idea  of  wor- 
ship.    But  in  the  comprehensive  idea  of  wor- 
ship is  included  the  expression  of  all  the  re- 
ligious emotions,  and  the  recognition  of  those 
truths  by  which  the  emotions  are  excited  and 
sustained.       Penitence,     faith,    thanksgiving, 
praise,    adoration,    supplication,    intercession, 
sacrifice,  all  enter  into  the  idea  of  worship,  and 
all  must  be  pervaded  by  the  great  truths  of  the 
Gospel,  so  that  what  might  be  otherwise  mere 
transient  emotion  may  be  transformed  into  per- 
manent principle  by  the  influence  of  the  truth. 
In  the  Liturgy  this  central  idea,  in  one  or  the 
other  of  its  aspects,  like  a  system  of  nerves  and 
muscles,    pervades   the  Avhole    structure,    and 
binds  in  vital  union  each  part  to  all.     See,  for 
a  moment,  with  what  symmetry  this  formative 
idea  disposes  the  various  portions  of  the  service 
of  prayer  and  praise  ;   how  logically  it  unfolds 
itself  from  step  to  step  ;  how  orderly  is  its  de- 
velopment, and  how  the  all-pervading  law  pen- 
etrates to  every  minutest  detail.     The  worship- 
per is  first  brought  into  that  attitude  in  which 
every  true  worshipper  must  stand — a  realiza- 
tion of  his  filial  relation  to  God  through  peni- 


50  THE  LITUBOY 

tence  and  forgiveness.  The  confession  and  de- 
claration of  absolution  are  followed  by  the 
"  Our  Father."  The  first  impulse  of  the 
heart  in  this  recognized  relation  is  praise,  and 
the  Liturgy,  reflecting  this  fact  in  our  nature, 
embodies  in  the  Venite  the  call  to  praise.  But 
the  soul,  not  yet  so  strong  as  to  soar  upon  its 
own  wings  of  adoration,  must  be  borne  up  for 
a  while,  and  so  it  is  lifted  upon  the  eagle  wings 
of  the  Psalms.  Then  it  is  prepared  for  flights 
of  its  own,  by  instruction  from  the  Scriptures, 
first  from  the  Old  Testament,  looking  forward 
in  spirit  and  prophecy  to  the  New.  And  lest 
the  subordination  of  instruction  to  worship 
should  fail  to  be  expressed,  between  the  Old 
and  the  New  we  have  a  glorious  burst  of  praise 
in  the  Te  Deum,  binding  together,  in  idea,  the 
two  Covenants,  and  suggesting  the  harmony  be- 
tween them.  After  the  New  Testament,  praise 
is  again  the  instinct  of  the  renewed  nature.  Then 
what  we  have  received  at  any  and  all  times  as 
instruction,  is  summed  up  in  a  statement  of 
our  belief  ;  and  now,  through  all  these  exer- 
cises, if  they  have  been  rightly  used,  the  soul 
is  ready  for  supplication  and  intercession.     But 


AND  CHRI8TIAN  UNION.  51 

this,  by  a  law  of  our  nature,  grows  more  in- 
tense, and  the  corresponding  idea  in  the  service 
changes  the  form  ijito  that  of  the  Litany,  with 
short  and  passionate  exclamations,  the  repeated 
petitions  of  the  people  in  the  same  words. 

But  the  central  idea  unfolds  itself  in  new 
forms,  taking  all  the  elements  which  have  pre- 
ceded up  into  a  higher  sphere  in  the  Com- 
munion, which  is  the  culminating  act  of  Chris- 
tian worship.  "We  stand  here,  too,  upon  pro- 
founder  theological  truth.  The  law  of  God,  in 
all  its  vast  requirements,  fitly  precedes  the  set- 
ting forth  of  the  Saviour  as  a  sacrifice  for  the 
sins  of  the  whole  world.  The  Gospel  and  Epis- 
tle lead  us  into  the  very  arcana  of  revelation, 
and  amid  the  lowliest  expressions  of  penitence, 
the  most  joyful  assurances  of  forgiveness,  and 
the  loftiest  ascriptions  of  praise,  we  renew  the 
scene  of  the  Last  Supjoer,  and  v/orship  ends 
in  the  spiritual  offering  and  sacrifice  of  our- 
selves, and  in  the  symbolism  of  our  incorpora- 
tion into  Christ. 

Thus  analyzed,  the  Liturgy  reveals  the  great 
characteristics  of  a  work  of  the  highest  genius, 
and  the  correspondence  between  it  and  the  laws 


52  THE  LITURGY 

of  the  human  mind  must  enable  it  to  satisfy  the 
permanent  and  universal  demands  of  the  in- 
tellect. 

Much  that  has  already  been  said  serves  to 
show  its  relation  to  the  emotional  part  of  our 
nature.  But  it  may  be  well  for  us  to  see  still 
further  how  the  Liturgy  is  adapted  to  excite 
the  EMOTIONS,  and  how  the  emotions  find  their 
most  fitting  expressions  in  its  accents  of  prayer 
and  praise.  The  law  of  our  nature  is  that  the 
emotions  are  excited  by  the  presentation  of  ob- 
jects which  are  so  constituted  as  to  move  our 
hope  or  fear,  our  hatred  or  love.  It  is  a  re- 
markable fact,  too,  that  the  best  and  holiest 
emotions  are  excited  gradually.  They  are  not 
to  be  called  into  exercise  by  violent  methods, 
and  the  process  by  which  sympathetic  responses 
of  love  and  devotion  are  secured  must  be  one 
in  which  the  grounds  of  these  emotions  slowly 
unfold  themselves.  The  Liturgy,  growing  as 
it  has  out  of  the  instinct  of  the  Church,  con- 
forms to  this  psychological  law.  There  are  at 
first  no  passionate  appeals,  nothing  intense  in 
the  expressions  of  devotion.  All  is  calm  and 
tranquil,  adapted  to  an  unemotional  condition 


AND  CHRISTIAN  UNION  53 

of  the  mind.  But  ere  long  truths  and  facts  be- 
gin to  come  up  to  view,  which  let  in  a  gleam  of 
light  and  heat  upon  the  emotional  nature. 
When  the  mind  has  been  thoroughly  penetrated 
with  scriptural  truth,  and  has  summed  up,  in 
audible  utterance,  the  facts  of  redemption,  then 
the  emotional  nature  has  become  excited,  and 
now  the  strongest  expressions  lose  all  exaggera- 
tion and  become  the  natural  utterances  of  the 
soul.  We  prostrate  ourselves  before  the  throne 
of  God,  and  beg  for  mercy  as  miserable  sinners. 
Electric  sympathies  bind  us  to  other  hearts  ; 
their  joys  and  sorrows  become  ours.  In  our 
moments  of  deepest  penitence,  and  the  raptures 
of  our  highest  devotion,  none  are  forgotten. 
We  intercede  for  rulers  in  Church  and  State,  for 
travellers  by  land  or  sea.  In  this  ardor  of  our 
love,  which  has  thus  been  kindled  at  the  altar 
of  devotion,  we  have  forgiven,  and  we  pray 
even  for  our  enemies,  persecutors,  and  slan- 
derers. And  then  our  sympathizing  thoughts 
turn  to  those  who  are  in  trouble  and  sorrow. 
The  weary,  heart-sick  prisoner  and  captive  ; 
the  widow  and  fatherless  children  we  commend 
to  the   defence   and  protection   of  the  Lord. 


54  THE  LITUEGT 

But  all  these  emotions,  thus  stirred  and  exer- 
cised, are  without  satisfaction  and  peace,  ex- 
cept as  the  glorious  presence  of  the  Saviour 
moves  before  the  mind  and  they  can  rest  upon 
him.  And  then  relief  is  found  for  feelings, 
which  have  no  other  fitting  object,  in  those 
passionate  exclamations  in  which  all  our  liopes 
are  staked  upon  his  sacrifice  :  "  By  thine  agony 
and  bloody  sweat,  by  thy  cross  and  passion,  by 
thy  death  and  burial,  by  thy  glorious  resurrec- 
tion and  ascension,  good  Lord  deliver  us." 

It  is  wonderful  to  notice,  in  the  Communion 
Ofiice,  the  correspondence  to  this  law  of  our 
emotional  nature.  Our  emotions  are  now  sup- 
posed to  be  in  the  liveliest  exercise.  A\'e  gather 
in  sweet,  affectionate  intercourse  around  the 
table  of  our  Lord.  What  deep  and  ardent  ex- 
pressions of  humility  and  love  now,  in  all  the 
truthfulness  of  nature,  tremble  u^son  our  lips  ! 
We  bewail  our  sins  and  wickedness  ;  the  re- 
membrance of  them  is  grievous  unto  us,  the 
burden  of  them  is  intolerable.  The  precious- 
ness  of  the  blood-shedding  of  Christ,  and  the 
innumerable  benefits  of  his  passion,  are  again 
and  again  suggested  to  the  mind.     His  exceed- 


AND  CHRISTIAN  UNION.  55 

ing  great  love,  his  blessed  passion  and  precious 
death,  echo  the  feelings  of  our  hearts,  and  we 
lose  all  thought  of  figure  and  symbol  in  the 
reality,  to  our  aroused  emotions,  of  the  recep- 
tion of  his  precious  body  and  blood. 

It  is  this  characteristic  of  the  Liturgy  that 
makes  it  an  objectof  affection  to  those  by  whom 
it  is  used.  These  emotions  become  intertwined 
with  it,  they  hang  upon  it,  like  rich  clusters  of 
grapes  upon  the  trellis  Avhich  supports  them, 
bound  to  it  by  the  ties  of  association,  and 
ripening  upon  it  to  their  full  perfection.  This 
cannot  be  the  case  unless  there  is  a  fixed  and 
permanent  form  around  which  the  affections 
can  cluster.  \Ye  can  never  know  how  vastly 
our  emotional  nature  is  indebted  to  it  as  an  ob- 
ject of  our  affections.  It  has  entered,  year 
after  year,  with  its  exhaustless  wealth  into  our 
spiritual  being  ;  and  as  the  sweet  birds,  caught 
from  the  wild  wood,  make  melody  for  us  in  our 
homes,  so  these  winged  words  have  been  im- 
prisoned in  the  mysterious  chambers  of  mem- 
ory, and  by  day  and  by  night  make  sacred 
music  to  the  soul. 

A  work  so  universal  as  this  cannot  leave  un- 


56  THE  LITURGY 

touched  the  remaining  aspect  in  which  our  na- 
ture may  be  regarded.  It  must  have  its  har- 
monious relations  with  and  adaptations  to  the 
WILL.  The  emotions  lie  but  juat  behind  the 
will,  and  that  which  so  i^rofoundly  stirs  the 
emotions  cannot  but  lay  its  hand  upon  the  vol- 
untary faculties  of  the  mind.  A  great  subject 
is  thus  opened  to  ns,  though  we  can  only  allude 
to  it — the  Liturgy  as  a  discipline  in  individual 
and  national  life.  Its  power  in  the  formation 
of  character  is  one  of  the  points  in  which  its 
vast  universality  is  most  clearly  to  be  seen. 

The  method  of  this  influence  is  analogous  to 
what  we  find  in  all  the  great  forces  of  nature. 
The  usual  operation  of  the  laws  of  nature  is  by 
incessant  pressure  of  influence.  Gravitation  is 
a  constant  force — acting  at  all  times  —  its 
agency  felt  no  more  sensibly  at  one  time  than 
another,  and  yet  it  is  a  power  which  holds  the 
universe  together.  The  vast  iceberg  which  is 
swept  down  by  ocean  currents  into  summer 
seas,  is  not  smitten  and  shattered  by  the  light- 
ning's stroke,  but,  under  the  constant  influence 
of  the  sun,  the  huge  mass  melts  silently  away. 
This  is  the  method  of  the  influence  of  the  Lit- 


AND  CHRISTIAN  UNION.  57 

iTi'gy  upon  the  will.  It  subjects  it  constantly 
to  repetitions  of  the  same  pressure.  It  urges 
the  will  toward  duty  and  holiness  by  gentle 
but  incessant  constraint.  It  puts  men  in  a 
position  where  they  must  be  either  hypocritical 
or  sincere  worshi|)pers,  and  obliges  them  to 
make  the  choice. 

As  this  law  is  best  illustrated  by  instances  of 
its  operation,  it  may  not  be  inaj)propriate  to 
refer  to  some  touching  evidences,  in  the  life  of 
the  great  Dr.  Johnson,  of  the  influence  of  the 
solemnities  of  the  Church  upon  his  religious 
life.     On  Good  Friday,  1764,  after  those  ser- 
vices which  set  before  us  the  very  scene  of  the 
mysterious  sacrifice  of  the  cross,  deeply  moved 
to  self-examination  and  amendment  of  life,  he 
writes  in  his  journal  :  "I  have  made  no  ref- 
ormation ;    I   have  lived    totally  useless,  and 
more  sensual  in  thought.     This  is  not  the  life 
to  which  heaven  is  promised."     And  he  adds 
his  earnest  purpose  to    lead  a    different    life. 
On  Easter  Day,  under  the  influences  of  the  glo- 
rious events  commemorated  in  this  festival,  his 
will  is  powerfully  moved  by  the  thrilling  ser- 
vice in  which  he  has  engaged.     "  I  prayed,"  he 


58  THIi:  LITURGY 

says,  "for  resolution  and  perseverance  tp 
amend  my  life.  0  God,  grant  me  to  resolve 
aright  and  keep  my  resolutions,  for  Jesus 
Christ's  sake." 

III.  The  point  to  which  I  would  finally  ask 
your  attention,  and  to  which  I  shall  very  briefly 
refer,  is  the  universality  of  the  Liturgy  in  rela- 
tion to  diversities  of  religious  opinion.  The 
theory  upon  which  the  Liturgy  is  constructed 
is  the  embodying  in  it  of  all  essential  and  fun- 
damental truth,  and  the  exclusion  of  that 
which  is  mere  matter  of  individual  opinion. 
If  it  is  necessary  to  recognize  in  public  worship 
the  peculiar  views  which,  as  a  part  of  the  Chris- 
tian family,  we  hold,  then  the  universality  of 
the  Liturgy,  in  this  respect,  would  be  an  objec- 
tion rather  than  a  benefit  ;  but  in  that  case  sec- 
tarianism, or  se2')aration  upon  points  not  essen- 
tial, must  be  regarded  as  the  right  and  normal 
condition  of  the  Church.  And  since  there  are 
few  who  will  admit  this,  we  must  conclude  that 
diversities  of  religious  opinion,  outside  of  that 
which  is  deemed  absolutely  fundamental,  ought 
not  to  interfere  with  unity  of  worship.  But  if 
this  is  the  case,  we  must  have  a  form  of  wor- 


AND  CHRISTIAN  UNION.  59 

ship  from  which  these  individual  peculiarities 
are  excluded,  and  wiiicli  yet  embodies  the  great 
truths  recognized  bj  the  Universal  Church. 
JSTow,  the  Liturgy  meets  just  these  requisitions. 
I  do  not  see  how  any  one  of  the  evangelical 
Churches,  holding  the  fundamental  truths  of 
the  Gospel  as  contained  in  the  universal  creeds, 
could  find  any  difficulty,  so  far  as  2')rincip]c  is 
concerned,  in  its  use.  But  to  bring  the  matter 
directly  to  a  test.  The  Baptist  would  find,  in 
this  service  of  worship,  nothing  that  would 
contravene  his  peculiar  views.  lie  might  still 
retain  his  own  opinions  as  to  the  mode  and  the 
subjects  of  baptism,  and  yet  use  every  word  of 
the  Liturgy  appointed  for  public  worship. 
The  Presbyterian,  the  Congregationalist,  the 
Dutch  Eeformed,  may  hold  what  views  they 
please  as  to  the  Galviuistic  system,  or  methods 
of  Church  goverment  and  organization.  The 
Liturgy  stands  grandly  aloof  from  such  ques- 
tions, and  no  word  which  it  contains  need  dis- 
turb the  most  earnest  advocate  of  these  partic- 
ular theological  views.  Or,  take  the  Metho- 
dist, his  Arminianism  will  not  be  rudely 
shocked  by  any  accent  here  of  supplication  or 


GO  THE  LITURGY 

praise.  And  yet,  all  these  find  here  that  which 
they  all  acknowledge  to  be  the  sum  and  sub- 
stance of  fundamental  Christian  truth.  The 
very  jjrocess  of  the  growth  of  the  Liturgy  has 
insured  this,  for  everything  local,  transient, 
and  individual  has  been  eliminated,  and  that 
only  which  has  the  sanction  of  the  Universal 
Church  has  been  retained. 

Now,  it  may  be  said  that  our  proj)osal  of  the 
Liturgy  as  a  basis  for  Christian  union  is  a  sec- 
tarian position  on  our  part,  and  that  it  is  sim- 
ply asking  all  men  to  agree  with  us.  Yv^ell,  we 
must  stand  somewhere,  and  labor  for  Christian 
union  from  some  given  point.  If  the  mere 
fact  that  we  stand  somewhere  is  sectarianism, 
then  we  are  Justly  liable  to  the  charge.  But 
does  our  position  involve  anything  sectarian  ? 
We  ask  for  unity  in  worship,  and  our  very  po- 
sition is  that  of  the  abandonment  of  everything 
individual  and  transient  for  the  permanent  and 
universal.  We  ask  that  all  but  fundamental 
truth,  universally  acknowledged  to  be  such, 
in  worship  should  be  given  up  ;  and  then 
the  question  will  be  as  to  universality  and 
general  adaptation  and  adoption   between  the 


AND  CHRISTIAN  UNION.  61 

forms  of  prayer  in  the  Liturgy,  and  the  forms  of 
prayer  which  are  furnished  for  congregations  in 
extemporaneous  worship.  There  can  be  little 
doubt,  it  seems  to  us,  that  if  there  ever  is  a  re- 
alization of  unity  in  worshij),  it  will  be  on  a 
liturgical  basis  and  after  the  model  of  a  his- 
toric Liturgy. 

We  have  thus  considered  the  Universality  of 
the  Liturgy  : 

L  In  its  origin  and  the  process  of  its  growth. 

IL   In  its  harmony  with  and  adaptation  to  hu- 
man nature. 

III.  In  the  possibility  of  its  use  among  all  di- 
versities of  religious  opinion,  where  fun- 
damental truth  is  held. 

There  are  many  indications  of  a  tendency, 
throughout  the  Christian  world,  to  visible  unity 
and  a  common  liturgical  worship.  The  great 
difficulty  with  which  this  tendency  has  to  con- 
tend is  the  conviction  that  Christian  union  is 
not  possible,  or,  if  possible,  not  desirable. 
But  this  shows  a  strange  blindness  to  the  de- 
signs of  God  in  his  government  of  the  Church, 


63  THE  LITUROY 

and  a  strange  indifference  to  the  beauty  of  that 
harmony  and  concord  which  called  forth  from 
the  Psalmist  the  exclamation  :  "  Behold  how 
good  and  pleasant  a  thing  it  is  for  brethren  to 
dwell  together  in  unity."  This  blindness  to 
the  certain  signs  of  the  times  is  as  if  one  should 
stand  in  the  presence  of  the  morning,  as  one 
flush  of  golden  light  after  another  shoots  up 
the  eastern  sky,  and  yet  declare  that  it  heralds 
no  coming  day.  This  want  of  appreciation  of 
the  beauty  and  blessedness  of  Christian  union 
is  as  if  one  should  be  surrounded  by  a  chaos  of 
grand  and  lovely  objects,  and  yet  desire  no  all- 
powerful  hand  to  reduce  them  into  the  order 
and  harmony  of  one  magnificent  whole.  We 
love  diversity  of  sounds,  the  infinitely  varied 
accents  of  Christian  experience,  the  multitudi- 
nous offering  up  of  prayer  and  praise.  Bat  we 
would  have  them  all,  the  pealing  tones  or  the 
softest  melody,  the  plaintive  supplication  or  the 
exultant  shoutings  of  triumph,  swell  forth  from 
one  grand  instrument,  vast  as  Christianity  it- 
self, and  touched  by  the  infinite  skill  of  the 
great  Master's  hand. 

Upon  all  those  to  wliom  the  Christian  Lit- 


AND  CHRISTIAN  UNION.  63 

urg-y  lias  come  down  through  the  ages,  a  most 
solemn  responsibility  is  imposed.  They  possess 
that  which  is  the  type  of  a  universal  worship. 
Let  them  see  to  it  that  they  send  it  broadcast 
with  the  everlasting  Word  of  God  over  the 
world.  And  let  the  longing  for  Christian  union 
and  common  worship  blend  with  our  desires 
and  aspirations  for  a  higher  and  better  life,  even 
as  we  pray  that  we  may  follow  the  blessed  saints 
in  all  virtuous  and  godly  living,  on  the  very 
ground  that  God  has  "  knit  together  his  elect 
in  one  communion  and  fellowship,  in  the  mys- 
tical body  of  His  Son  Christ  our  Lord." 


THE  CHURCH'S 
LAW  OF  DEVELOPMENT. 


Preached   before  the  Convention"  of  the 
Diocese  of  New  York,  Sept.  25,  1873. 

It  cannot  be  regarded  otherwise  than  as  a 
privilege  to  stand  in  this  place  upon  this  occa- 
sion. But  it  is  a  privilege  which  is  attended 
with  a  very  special  and  delicate  responsibility. 
The  preacher,  in  such  a  case,  is  accepted  for 
the  time,  by  his  brethren,  as  their  teacher,  and 
as  their  teacher,  too,  upon  a  class  of  subjects 
specially  appropriate  to  such  occasions — those 
which  relate  to  the  Church  of  which  wo  are 
ministers  and  representatives.  It  is  the  diversity 
of  opinion  which  exists  in  regard  to  this  class 
of  subjects  that  invests  the  position  of  the 
preacher,  on  such  an  occasion,  with  the  re- 
sponsibility of  which  I  have  spoken.     No  true 


66  THE  CHURCH'S  LAW 

man  would  be  willing,  or  could  be  reasonably 
expected,  to  speak  otherwise  than  in  the  line  of 
his  positive  convictions.  While  endeavoring 
conscientiously  to  do  this,  I  recall  that  beauti- 
ful passage,  in  one  of  the  letters  of  Ignatius,  in 
which  he  speaks  of  himself  as  a  "  man  given  to 
unity."  It  is  my  earnest  desire,  in  what  I  may 
have  to  say,  both  by  fidelity  to  my  own  convic- 
tions and  justice  to  those  of  others,  to  j^ro- 
mote  "  the  unity  of  the  spirit  in  the  bond  of 
peace." 

The  portion  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  which 
suggests  the  special  subject  ujjon  which  I  would 
address  you  is  found  in  Eph.  3  :  14,  15  :  "  The 
Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  of  whom  the 
whole  family  in  heaven  and  earth  is  named." 

Every  one,  who  reflects  upon  the  subject, 
must  be  impressed  with  the  design,  which  is 
manifested  in  the  sys'en  of  things  in  which  we 
are  placed,  that  men  should  be  organized  into 
societies.  To  say  nothing  now  of  the  social  in- 
stincts and  tendencies,  under  the  influence  of 
which  men  come  into  every  variety  of  mutual 
relations,  there  are  certain  societies  which  exist 
by  express  divine  provision,  and  are  broadly 


OF  DEVELOPMENT.  67 

distinguishable  from  all  others  in  the  relation 
which  they  sustain  to  mankind.  The  first  of 
these  divine  institutions,  lying  as  it  does  at  the 
very  foundation  of  society,  in  the  broadest  sense 
of  the  term,  is  the  Family.  The  next,  in  which 
man  enters  into  a  sphere  of  higher  and  freer 
discipline,  is  the  State.  The  last  and  highest 
of  the  divinely-established  societies,  in  which 
man  enters  on  the  life  eternal,  is  the  Church. 

It  is  impossible  rightly  to  understand  any 
one  of  these  societies  without  having  seized 
upon  the  great  principles  by  which  the  charac- 
ter of  the  others  is  determined.  They  are  all 
linked  together  by  the  common  ideas  which 
pervade  them,  and  are  different  aspects  of  one 
great  plan  for  the  moral  welfare  and  redemp- 
tion of  mankind.  It  is  wonderful  to  notice 
how,  in  the  successive  development  of  these  so- 
cieties, some  fundamental  idea  is  lifted  up  into 
higher  relations  and  a  new  significance.  Take, 
for  instance,  the  idea  of  fatherhood.  It  exists 
in  its  simplest  form  in  the  Family.  It  is  car- 
ried up,  with  more  complex  relations,  through 
the  patriarchate  and  the  tribe,  into  the  State. 
It  reaches  its  highest  form  and  development  in 


68  THE  CUURCH'8  LAW 

the  Churcli,  where  the  reverence,  the  loyalty, 
and  th'e  love  in  which  we  have  been  disciplined 
in  the  lower  relations  are  lifted  np  to  the 
"  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  of  Avhom 
the  whole  family  in  heaven  and  earth  is 
named." 

In  this  connection  we  shall  notice  the  re- 
markable significance  of  one  of  the  terms  which 
the  apostle  here  uses,  and  which  in  our  version 
is  translated  "  family."  Adopting,  for  our 
present  purpose,  the  view  of  those  biblical  crit- 
ics who  consider  the  word  "  family"  hereto  re- 
fer to  the  whole  body  of  the  redeemed,  our  at- 
tention is  at  once  arrested  by  the  peculiarity  of 
the  word  in  the  original.  It  is,  as  you  remem- 
ber, Uarpia,  and  suggests  instantly  to  the 
mind  the  relationship  which  exists  between  this 
and  the  other  divine  societies  iu  the  Avorld.  It 
is  clearly  intimated  in  this  word  that  the 
Church  is  not  merely  a  society,  that  it  is  not 
merely  a  divine  societ}',  but  that  it  is  also  a  so- 
ciety based,  in  the  highest  sense,  uijon  that 
fatherly  and  filial  relation  which  has  its  lower 
expression  in  the  Family  and  the  State,  but 
which  here    reaches  its  highest    form  in  the 


OF  DEVELOPMENT.  69 

fatherhood  of  God  and  the  brotherhood  of  men 
in  Christ  Jesus. 

And  while  there  is  this  same  fundamental 
idea  running  tlirongh  these  divine  institutions, 
and  assuming  a  higher  character  at  each  stage 
of  its  development,  there  is  also  a  progress  in 
the  universality  of  the  sphere  in  which  this  fun- 
damental idea  is  manifested.  The  Family  is 
limited  in  its  sphere  by  the  necessary  operation 
of  natural  laws.  The  State  has  a  wid6r  field, 
but  it  too  is  confined  within  the  limits  of  na- 
tional development,  determined  usually  by  the 
form  and  extent  of  areas  bounded  by  moun- 
tains, or  rivers,  or  seas.  The  tendency  toward 
universality,  which  is  thus  evident,  reaches  its 
fullest  manifestation  in  the  Church,  which  is 
the  one  only  universal  society,  ever  struggling 
toward  the  realization  of  that  ideal  Avhich  in- 
cludes the  whole  race  of  man. 

This  idea  of  a  universal  society,  established 
in  truth  and  righteousness,  has  alwa3^s  haunted 
the  imagination  of  the  j)rofonndest  thinkers 
and  noblest  spirits  of  the  world.  Plato  unfolds 
his  conception  of  it  in  those  wonderful  antici- 
pations of    the   jjrogress   of    human   thought 


70  "^EE  CHURCH'S  LAW 

through  more  than  two  thousand  years,  and  in 
those  magnificent  word-pictures  of  man  and  so- 
ciety Avhich  we  find  in  the  "  Eepublic." 
Dante,  whose  mars^ellous  genius  had  gathered 
up  all  the  treasures  of  knowledge  which  human 
inquiry  had  accumulated,  made  his  "  Divina 
Commedia"  an  embodiment  of  the  laws  and 
principles,  as  he  conceived  them,  of  this  divine 
society.  St.  Augustine  soared  higher  than 
Plato  or  Dante  in  his  vision  of  the  "  City  of 
God."  And  with  what  wonder  and  awe  do  we 
follow  the  prophetic  history  of  this  society  in 
the  Apocalypse  ;  trace  its  bitter  trials  through 
centuries  of  i:»ersecution  and  sacrifice  ;  mark 
its  triumphs  ;  and  see  it,  at  last,  the  new  Jeru- 
salem, the  eternal  kingdom  of  heaven  ! 

If  we  wish  to  catch  the  significance  of  this 
divine  society,  and  to  understand  somewhat  of 
its  fundamental  principles  and  laws,  we  have 
the  starting-point  in  the  idea  of  it  presented  in 
the  text.  It  is  a  Family.  It  is  also  a  State. 
The  fatherhood  upon  which  it  is  based  is  the 
fatherhood  of  God.  Its  brotherhood  is  the 
brotherhood  of  man  in  Christ.  Its  ideal  is  as 
universal  as  the  race. 


OF  BEVELOPMIJNT.  71 

Starting,  then,  from  this  j)oint,  we  find  that 
there  are  two  prominent  ideas  in  each  of  these 
lower  institutions,  the  Family  and  the  State, 
which  Ave  should  expect  to  find  reappearing  in 
an  intenser  form  in  the  Church.  These  two 
ideas  arc  those  of  stability  and  progress.  While 
the  institution  of  the  Family  is  subject  to  a  law 
of  development,  it  is  principally  characterized 
by  conservative  elements.  The  principles  upon 
which  it  is  based,  and  the  phenomena  it  pre- 
sents, are  substantially  the  same,  age  after  age. 
The  State  has  also  its  conservative  elements, 
but  is  chiefly  characterized  by  mobility  and 
progress.  If,  then,  the  relations  of  these  three 
divine  societies  are  such  as  we  have  supposed, 
we  shall  find  this  twofold  character  in  the 
Church.  There  will  be  elements  of  stability 
and  elements  of  change  and  development. 
Both  classes  of  elements  will  exist  in  an  in- 
tenser  form  than  before  ;  but  the  elements  of 
change  and  development  having  already  as- 
serted, in  the  State,  their  superiority  in  power, 
will  have  an  ascendency  in  a  still  higher  de- 
gree in  the  Church.  It  is  this  law  of  devel- 
opment, passing  up  from  these  lower  societies 


73  THE  CHURCH'S  LAW 

into  the  Church,  that  we  are  now  to  con- 
sider. 

Think  for  a  tnoment  how  wonclerfal  is  this 
fact  of  development  in  these  lower  societies  ! 
How  does  family  life  everywhere  expand  itself 
into  the  life  of  states  !  And  these  states,  how 
vastly  varied  are  the  forms  they  assume  and  the 
vicissitudes  through  which  they  pass  !  The 
generations  in  them  struggle,  sometimes  blindly, 
scarcely  ever  with  more  than  imperfect  con- 
sciousness, toward  some  higher  and  divinely  ap- 
pointed end.  The  progress  of  states,  though 
strangely  devious,  yet  when  the  whole  of  his- 
tory is  considered,  is  seen  to  have  been,  by  the 
operation  of  some  mysterious  and  irresistible 
law,  toward  Avider  knowledge  of  truth,  more 
substantial  victories  over  evil,  and  increase  of 
the  welfare  and  the  happiness  of  mankind. 

It  would  seem  certain,  then,  that  a  similar 
law  of  development  would  be  found  to  exist  in 
the  Church.  But  what  is  its  nature,  and  what 
are  our  relations  to  it,  are  questions  most  im- 
portant for  us  to  consider. 

This  development  must  be  conceived  of  as  a 
development  of  the  Church  as  such,  and  not 


OF  DEVELOPMENT.  73 

merely  of  the  individuals  of  which  it  is  com- 
posed. Each  generation,  therefore,  has  a  van- 
tage ground  which  it  inherits  from  tlie  experi- 
ence and  discoveries  of  preceding  generations  ; 
so  that,  although  this  inheritance  is  nof  always 
wisely  used,  and  consequently  particular  gen- 
erations in  the  Church's  history  may  fail  to 
advance  beyond  the  point  reached  by  those  who 
preceded  them,  yet  the  accelerated  rate  of  prog- 
ress, after  such  stationary  periods,  is  a  suffi- 
cient compensation,  and  vindicates  the  opera- 
tion of  the  law. 

This  progress  in  the  Church  is,  like  the  anal- 
ogous progress  in  civil  society,  chiefly  an  intel- 
lectual rather  than  a  moral  progress  ;  that  is,  a 
progress  in  the  discovery  and  apprehension  of 
truth  rather  than  in  spiritual  life.  The  his- 
tory of  the  Church  discloses  an  ever-widening 
range  of  truth,  into  the  possession  of  which  the 
Church  enters.  It  discloses  also  a  progress  in 
the  adaptation  of  the  Church's  method  to  the 
new  and  more  complex  needs  of  advancing  gen- 
erations. But  it  seems  clear  that  there  is  not 
a  corresponding  progress,  or  higher  attainments, 
in  the  same  ratio,  in  the  Christian  life.     This 


74  THE  CHURCH'S  LAW 

fact  limits,  for  onr  consideration,  the  sphere 
of  the  Church's  development  to  the  clearer  ap- 
l^rehension  of  truth,  and  to  the  ever-varying 
adaptation  of  its  means  and  agencies  to  the 
ever-varying  needs  of  the  world. 

This  twofold  progress  is  brought  about,  on 
the  supernatural  side,  by  the  enlightening  in- 
fluences of  the  Holy  Spirit ;  and,  on  the  natu- 
ral side,  by  the  operation  of  an  intellect  pre- 
pared, by  a  sanctified  heart,  for  the  investiga- 
tion and  practical  use  of  truth.  The  material 
upon  which  this  investigation  is  to  be  employed 
is  already  furnished.  Tliere  is  no  addition  to  or 
development  of  that.  There  is  no  new  revela- 
tion of  facts  upon  which  Christianity  is  based. 
Just  as  nature  is  a  finished  and  complete  sys- 
tem, so  revelation  is  also.  It  is  a  clearer 
knov/ledge  of  tlies3^stem  which  we  need,  and  in 
which  progress  is  made.  It  is  to  be  remem- 
bered, also,  that  this  development  in  the  Church 
runs  parallel  with,  and  is  largely  conditioned 
by,  secular  and  scientific  progress.  The  two 
are  so  intimately  connected  in  the  great  system 
of  which  they  form  a  part  that  their  disloca- 
tion is  impossible. 


OF  DEVELOPMENT.  75 

Having  thus  considered  some  of  the  laws  and 
principles  of  this  development,  wo  are  prepared 
to  notice  some  of  the  salient  and  most  charac- 
teristic points  in  its  history.  It  is  not  uniform 
movement  which  presents  itself  for  our  consid- 
eration, but  alternations  of  rest  and  extraordi- 
nary activity.  It  was  after  a  long  period,  ap- 
parently of  intellectual  repose,  that  the  Church 
found  itself,  in  the  Nicene  age,  in  the  posses- 
sion of  a  new  consciousness  of  truth  whicli 
had  been  but  dimly  apprehended  before.  The 
Middle  Ages,  the  influence  of  which  upon  the 
Church  has  been  so  often  both  overrated  and 
undervalued,  gave  to  the  world  St.  Anselm's 
profound  theory  of  the  Atonement  and  its  rela- 
tion to  the  divine  government.  A  still  vaster 
stride  in  this  wonderful  development  was  tak- 
en at  the  great  Eeformation,  when  seeds  of 
thought  sown  long  before  were  springing  up 
in  abundant  harvests — when  the  world  was  all 
alive  with  the  new  intellectual  activity  which 
had  been  excited.  A  thousand  fetters,  by  whicli 
the  human  spirit  had  been  bound,  were  bro- 
ken ;  a  thousand  new  impulses  toward  freedom 
and  a  higher  and  better  life  had  been  given. 


76  THE  CHURCH'S  LA  W 

But,  among  all  the  marvellous  achievements  of 
that  period,  none  is  more  conspicuous  than  the 
new  view  which  the  Church  then  gained  of  the 
work  of  Christ.  It  awoke  to  a  full  conscious- 
ness of  his  divinity  and  his  relation  to  the  God- 
head in  the  Nicene  period.  It  rose  to  a  truer 
apprehension  of  the  nature  of  atonement  in  the 
time  of  the  Schoolmen.  At  the  Reformation  it 
laid  hold  with  a  grasp  which  no  power  can  un- 
loose upon  the  fact  of  the  finished  work  and 
the  free  salvation  accomplished  by  Christ.  In 
the  thrilling  joy  of  this  clear  apprehension  of 
truth,  this  consciousness  of  vast  development 
and  entrance  upon  a  new  career,  that  portion 
of  the  Church  Universal  to  Avhich  we  belong, 
our  Church,  and  to  which  our  allegiance  is  due, 
gave  herself  a  new  name,  inscribed  it  deep  down 
upon  the  very  foundations  on  which  she  stands, 
and  calls  herself,  in  commemoration  of  the  vic- 
tories of  that  period,  Protestant,  henceforth 
and  forever  ! 

Before  considering  what  circumstances  are 
favorable  to  this  general  development,  we  must 
not  be  unmindful  of  the  fact  that  we  are  living 
iiov/  in  the  midst  of  a  development  more  won- 


OF  DEVELOPMENT.  77 

derful  tlian  any  of  the  j^i'cvious  ages.  The 
great  idea  of  the  theology  of  the  present  day  is 
that  of  the  love  of  God.  This  love,  in  all  its 
ineffable  exhibitions  to  the  Family,  the  Patria, 
of  which  God  is  the  Father,  becomes  the  inspir- 
ing motive  to  the  love  of  the  brotherhood  in 
Christ  Jesus.  It  is  this  mighty  truth,  appre- 
hended as  never  before,  by  the  moral  sense 
rather  than  the  logical  faculty,  which  is  now 
stirring  beneath  the  j^beiiomena  of  this  new 
democratic  age  in  which  we  live.  It  is  the  an- 
imating principle  in  all  those  efforts  which  are 
now  made  for  the  welfare  and  redemption  of 
man.  It  has  taught  the  lesson  of  the  priceless 
value  of  every  member  of  the  race.  It  has  made 
every  burden  which  lies  on  any  child,  of  Adam 
a  burden  on  the  Christian's  heart.  Under  the 
inspiration  of  this  principle,  the  Church  goes 
out  among  dark  and.  desolate  places,  sighs  and 
groans  in  sympathy  witli  human  woe,  and 
stretches  out  her  pitying  hands  to  rescue  and.  to 
save.  Perhaps  this  is  the  final  period  of  its  de- 
velopment. Could  there  be  a  more  glorious 
consummation,  if  this  ideal  should  be  realized  ! 


78  THE  CHURCH'S  LAW 

"  The  world  is  old  : 
But  the  old  •world  waits  the  time  to  be  renewed. 
Toward  wliich  new  hearts,  in  individual  growth, 
Must  quiclien  and  increase  to  multitude. 
In  new  dynasties  of  the  race  of  men  ; 
Developed  whence,  shall  grow  spontaneouslj'' 
New  Cimrches,  new  economies,  new  laws 
Admitting  freedom,  new  societies 
Excluding  falsehood.     ITe  shall  make  all  new." 

After  these  considerations,  the  inquiry  sug- 
gests itself,  What  circumstances  are  most  favor- 
able to  this  development  ?  It  has  been  found, 
throughout  the  whole  history  of  the  State  and 
the  Church,  that  one  condition  of  j^rogress  and 
development  is  always  present,  and  that  is  the 
conflict  of  different  parties  and  schools  of 
opinion.  Nothing  could  be  sadder  than  the  ac- 
counts which  have  come  down  to  us  of  the  bit- 
terness of  partisan  warfare  in  the  Church, 
through  which,  nevertheless,  the  jiurification  of 
the  Church  has  again  and  again  been  accom- 
plished. These  are  the  abuses  of  that  which  is 
a  necessary  and  beneficent  feature  in  human  so- 
ciety. It  is  a  curious  fact  that  there  are  such 
limits  placed,  in  human  nature,  to  individual  ^ 


OF  DEVELOPMENT.  79 

diversities  of  opinion  tliat  Ave  seldom  find  men 
standing  alone  in  such  matters,  isolated  from 
their  fellows.  As  an  almost  universal  rule,  wo 
find  men  of  a  certain  temperament  and  certain 
types  of  education  groujoed  together  in  parties 
and  schools,  and  held  together  by  a  common  in- 
terest in  what  they  hold  to  bo  important  prin- 
ciples or  ideas.  Such  groups  or  parties  we  find 
in  the  New  Testament  period  of  the  Church. 
They  have  characterized  it  at  every  peiiod  of 
its  histor}'.  Some  of  these  parties  have  served 
a  certain  purpose  for  a  time,  and  then  disap- 
jjeared.  Some  have  rooted  themselves  so  deeply 
in  the  Church's  life  that  they  have  been  per- 
manent elements  in  it  for  centuries  ;  and  there 
are  others  which  seem,  in  one  form  or  another, 
to  run  throuohthe  whole  history  of  the  Church. 
There  has  been  abundant  occasion,  all  thruugh 
this  historj-,  to  mourn  over  exhibitions  of  party 
spirit  and  partisan  aggrandizement  :  but  no 
man,  it  seems  to  me,  can  deny  the  beneficent 
influence  which  parties,  as  such,  have  exercised, 
and  the  impossibility  of  any  true  progress  in 
the  Church  without  them.  See,  for  a  moment, 
the  method  by  which  different  schools,  if  ani- 


80  THE  CHURCH'S  LAW 

mated  bj  high  and  generous  feeling,  will  pro- 
mote the  discovery  and  establishment  of  truth. 
Since  more  or  less  of  error  will  creep  into  all 
-systems,  the  mistaken  positions  which  will  be 
found  in  all  ecclesiastical  parties  will  be  ex- 
posed, and  more  or  less  qualified,  by  the  rigid 
scrutiny  of  opposite  parties,  to  which  they  will 
be  subjected.  The  very  fact  of  opposition  will 
incite  to  more  thorough  examination  of  the 
ground  assumed  :  and,  though  it  sometimes 
leads  to  an  obstinate  adherence  to  that  which 
has  once  been  received  as  true,  it  more  generally 
leads  to  an  abandonment,  sooner  or  later,  of 
that  which  is  found  to  be  false.  In  our  present 
state,  in  v/hich  we  know  but  in  part,  our  great 
need  is  to  know  more.  Inquiry,  restless,  per- 
sistent inquiry,  insatiable  searching  after  truth, 
is  an  imperative  necessity  of  the  Church,  until 
we  shall  know  even  as  also  we  are  known.  But 
from  the  very  moment  when  our  searching  be- 
gins, we  shall  be  thrown  upon  different  tracks  ; 
and,  while  the  number  of  those  paths  is  limited 
by  the  laws  of  the  mind,  so  that  we  travel  in 
company  upon  them,  yet  they  apparently  di- 
verge more  and  more,  and  some  seem  to  run  in 


OF  DEVELOPMENT.  81 

opposite  directions  ;  but  a  mysterious  attrac- 
tion seems  to  keep  the  different  groujos  wiiliia 
sight  and  hailing  distance  of  each  other,  and  it 
is  found  at  last  that  the  complex  mo"venient  of 
the  whole  has  been,  with  greater  or  less  varia- 
tions, toward  a  common  end.  It  is  thus  that 
God  in  his  wisdom  makes  the  errors  of  one  class 
of  men  correct  the  errors  of  another,  thus  caus- 
ing the  Tery  follies  of  men  to  praise  him  in  the 
discovery  of  his  truth. 

It  would  seem  to  be  necessary,  therefore,  if  a 
man  would  aid  in  this  development  and  prog- 
ress of  the  Church,  that  he  should  submit  to 
the  conditions  under  which  alone,  in  the  j)res- 
ent  state  of  things,  it  is  to  be  secured,  and  suffer 
himself  to  be  drawn,  by  his  convictions  and 
sympathies,  into  affiliation  with  that  school 
which  most  nearly  expresses  his  own  views  or 
seems  to  him  to  promise  best  in  its  influence  for 
the  prosperity  of  the  Church.  If  the  issues  upon 
which  the  Church  is  more  or  less  divided  are 
not  important,  then  it  follows  that  the  chief 
energies  of  the  Church  are  expended  upon 
trifling  questions,  a  humiliating  concession 
'  which  none  of  us,  happily,  feels  compelled  to 


82  THE  ClIURCH-S  LAW 

make.  But  if  these  issues  are  important,  then 
it  would  seem  as  if  he  must  be  wanting  in  clear- 
ness of  vision  who  confuses  these  lines  of  dis- 
tinction ;  or,  if  clearly  discerning  them,  must 
be  wanting  in  masculine  vigor  and  earnest  con- 
scientiousness, if  he  fail  to  show  himself  unmis- 
takably uj)on  the  one  side  or  the  other.  I  was 
very  much  struck,  not  long  since,  with  a  pass- 
age, characterized  by  rare  wisdom,  in  a  letter 
from  the  distinguished  Dr.  Nott,  formerly 
President  of  Union  College,  to  the  late  Bishop 
of  Pennsjdvania.  He  sa3s  :  "  Where  there  are 
party  lines  drawn  in  a  Church,  and  especially 
where  these  lines  are  understood  to  be  the 
boundary  lines  of  great  j)rinciioles,  no  man  hold- 
ing an  important  statiou  can  maintain  a  per- 
fect state  of  neutrality,  nor  can  he  assume  to 
do  it,  without  eventually  losing  the  respect  of 
both  parties  and  of  the  community  itself  ;  for 
it  is  natural  to  respect  men  differing  from  us  in 
I^rinciples,  more  than  men  who  are  understood 
A  to  have  no  principles  at  all. "  Carrying  out  the 
idea  of  this  admirable  passage,  it  would  seem  to 
me  to  be  a  happy  day  when  the  truth  is  gen- 
erally recognized  that  the  Church  is  more  cath- 


OF  DEVELOPMENT.  83 

olic  than  any  of  its  members  can  possibly  be  ; 
that  the  questions  which  agitate  the  Church  are 
questions  in  regard  to  which  every  minister,  at 
least,  should  have  some  decided  convictions  ; 
and  as  it  is  impossible  for  him  to  hold  the 
contradictory  propositions  which  arc  presented 
to  him,  he  will  do  wisely  and  bcht  for  the 
Church  to  declare  which  he  does  hold,  and  de- 
vote himself,  with  generous  consideration  for 
others,  but  with  earnest  devotion,  to  the  cause 
which  he  has  thus  espoused.  Such  a  general 
recognition  of  the  legitimacy  of  different  schools 
of  opinion  in  the  Church,  and  the  part  which 
they  play  in  its  development,  would  lead  to  the 
abandonment  of  that  dream  of  absolute  uni- 
formity, the  effort  to  secure  which  has  been 
such  a  fruitful  cause  of  alienation  and  division, 
and  to  an  accejatance  of  that  law  of  diversity  in 
unity  which  so  wonderfully  characterizes  the 
works  of  God. 

If,  in  this  imperfect  state  of  being,  the  de- 
velopment of  the  Church  is  thus  brought  about 
by  the  collision  of  opposing  sentiments,  indiffer- 
ent schools,  it  becomes  a  very  important  ques- 
tion whether  the  relations  of  these  schools  to 


84  THE  O^VHUH'S  LAW 

each  other  may  not  be  animated  by  a  more 
Christian  spirit,  and  placed  upon  a  more  satis- 
factory Christian  basis,  without  impairing  fidel- 
ity to  what  is  regarded  as  Cliristian  truth.  The 
odium  theologicum  has  been  proverbial,  and  the 
type  of  the  bitterest  hatred  and  liostility.  It  is 
a  marked  feature  of  our  age  that  these  asperities 
are  to  so  large  a  degree  softened,  and  that,  too, 
without  any  necessary  diminution  of  devotion 
to  truth.  When  we  remember  tiie  circum- 
stances under  which  religious  opinion  is  usually 
formed  ;  how  almost  inevitable  it  is  that  a  cer- 
tain class  of  philosophical  views,  or  the  absence 
of  such  views,  will  give  a  certain  definite  direc- 
tion to  religious  thought  ;  how  greatly  it  is 
affected  by  social  position  and  conipunionshij)  ; 
how  dependent  it  is  upon  temperament  and 
general  physical  condition  ;  when,  in  addition 
to  all  these  mysterious  influences,  which  exer- 
cise so  powerful  an  effect  upon  religious 
opinion,  we  remember  that  each  one  of  us  is 
fallible,  that  there  is  no  more  infallibility  of  the 
individual  than  there  is  of  the  pope  ;  especially 
when  we  think  of  the  effect  of  death  in  arrest- 
ing the  animosities  of  theological  and  ecclesias- 


OF  DEVELOPMENT.  85 

tical  conflict,  and  how  the  kindly  feelings  and 
generous  sympathies  How  forth  to  a  fallen  op- 
ponent— may  wo  not  well  ask  ourselves  whether 
the  magnanimity  which  is  possible  after  death 
may  not  he  possible  during  the  life  of  those 
whose  opinions  Ave  repudiate.  When  we  read 
of  the  chivalrous  feelings  which,  in  the  olden 
time,  animated  the  Christian  and  the  Saracen 
hosts,  in  the  hostilities  of  mortal  strife  ;  the 
dignified  courtesy  extended  to  each  ;  the  in- 
dignant refusal  to  take  any  base  advantage  of 
the  foe,  and  the  heroic  sentiment  that  led  the 
Florentine  Christians  to  ring  their  bells  before 
rushing  to  the  attack,  in  order  that  the  enemy 
might  not  betaken  unawares,  we  should  blush 
with  shame  should  it  be  found  that  there  is  less 
of  honor  and  magnanimity  among  those  mem- 
bers of  the  family  of  Christ  who  are  contending 
with  each  other  for  the  truth. 

I  have  said  that  there  has  been  a  great  soften- 
ing of  theological  and  ecclesiastical  asperities. 
The  whole  tone  of  controversy  on  these  sub- 
jects is  less  bitter  and  more  just.  Let  us  be 
thankful  for  it,  and  feel  that  there  is  yet  room 
for  improvement.     The  right  spirit,  in  its  ful- 


86  THE  CHURCirS  LAW 

iioss,  may  bo  expected  to  come  Avhen,  not  re- 
pression bub  liberty,  within  the  v/idest  limits  of 
the  Clmrch's  toleration  and  comprehensiveness, 
is  seen  to  be  the  true  law  of  the  Church's  life 
and  development.  This  result  might  well  flow 
from  the  recognized  fact  that  we  are  members 
of  a  Family,  with  one  common  Father,  and  ar 
brethren  in  Christ  Jesus. 

But  the  difficulty  here  is  that,  in  the  view  of 
so  many,  there  isno  way  of  contending  valiantly 
for  the  faith  so  effectual  as  putting  our  opponents 
under  ecclesiastical  axes  and  harrows  ;  and,  i 
we  can  not  succeed  in  that,  of  severing  all  eccle- 
siastical ties  by  which  we  arc  bound  to  them. 
This  is  a  policy  which  has  the  advantage  of 
plainness  and  simplicity.  It  looks  bold  and 
thorough.  But  it  is  one  which  has  in  all  ages 
been  attended  with  immense  loss  to  the  Church. 
Kothing  but  infallibility  will  justify  it  ;  and 
even  the  supposed  possession  of  infallibility  will 
not  justify  it,  unless  a  man  or  the  Church  can 
infallibly  know  that  he  or  it  is  infallible. 

The  argument,  by  which  such  a  policy  is  en- 
forced, inevitably  breaks  down  when  pushed  to 
its  logical  results.     The  principle  of  ccclesiasti- 


OF  DEVELOPMENT.  87 

cal  seclusion  from  error  won  Id  lend  to  separation 
from  everybody,  for  everybody  differs  from  us 
in  some  point,  which,  if  carried  to  its  extreniGst 
consequences,  would  involve,  in  our  view,  all 
the  error  in  the  universe.  The  final  landing- 
place  of  the  argument  is  in  that  position  in 
which  a  man  says,  "  I  alone  am  the  Church  ;  I 
alone  am  a  Christian  I" 

I  certainly  shall  not  be  understood  as  under- 
valuing the  importance  of  those  questions  which 
agitate  the  Church.  My  whole  argument  is 
based  upon  a  sense  of  their  vast  importance. 
Neither  would  I  compromise  one  jot  or  tittle  of 
principle,  or  of  clear  conviction  as  to  the  best 
methods  and  agencies  by  which  the  interests  of 
the  truth  can  be  subserved.  What  I  plead  for 
is  an  unfettered  development,  so  far  as  any  ec- 
clesiastical repression  is  concerned,  of  historical 
tendencies  in  the  Church  ;  the  freest  possible 
inquiry  and  investigation  ;  the  most  earnest, 
while  fair  and  honorable,  condemnation  of  what 
we  believe  to  be  error,  and  advocacy  of  what  we 
believe  to  be  truth.  These  are  the  weapons 
and  the  only  legitimate  weapons,  of  our  warfare. 
So  far  as  any  tendencies  in  the  Church  are  dan- 


88  THE  CHURCH'S  LAW 

geroiis,  and  some  of  them  I  feel  to  be  very  full 
of  danger,  this  metliod  of  meeting  them  seems 
to  me  the  only  one  which  is  safe  or  wise.  And 
this  I  say  though  certain  of  these  tendencies,  in 
my  understanding  of  them,  tremble,  on  the  one 
side,  upon  the  very  verge  of  infidel  rationalism, 
and  on  the  other,  of  the  grossest  superstition 
and  idolatry.  But  it  is  more  than  doubtful 
whether  we  could  safely  dispense  with  any  one 
of  the  schools  out  of  which  even  these  tenden- 
cies i^roceed. 

Let  us  look  for  a  moment  at  the  relation  of 
these  schools  of  opinion  to  some  of  the  great  in- 
terests of  Christianity  at  the  present  day.  It  is 
impossible  to  make  any  classification  of  them 
which  shall  be  more  than  approximately  cor- 
rect. But  for  all  j^ractical  purposes,  the  ordi- 
nary classification  of  them  in  this  Church — as 
the  Broad,  High,  and  Low  or  Evangelical 
schools — is  sufficiently  accurate.  Accepting  this 
classification,  I  would  endeavor  with  entire 
frankness  to  consider  some  of  their  prominent 
characteristics. 

Among  the  prominent  ideas  in  the  Broad 
Church  movement  is  the  widening  of  the  catho- 


OF  DEVELOPMENT.  ^9 

licity  of  the  Chiircii  by  reducing  its  dogmatic 
basis.  The  principle  upon  which  it  proceeds  is 
that  the  fewer  and  more  fundamental  the  things 
which  the  Church  requires  to  be  believed,  the 
greater  will  be  the  number  of  those  who  will 
adhere  to  the  Church.  That  this  tendency  may 
be,  and  has  been,  carried  to  such  an  extent  as 
to  threaten  the  sacrifice  of  some  of  the  funda- 
mental articles  of  the  faith  must  be  admitted. 
But  when  we  remember  how,  in  modern  times, 
the  ancient  creeds  have  been  overlaid  with  cum- 
brous confessions  and  elaborate  theological  sys- 
tems, and  what  a  fruitful  source  has  thus  been 
opened  of  controversy  and  division,  this  move- 
ment must  be  regarded  as  having  a  salutary 
character,  in  so  far  as  it  is  a  protest  against 
that  traditionalism  which  constantly  adds  to 
the  things  which  must  be  believed,  and  is  also  an 
assertion  of  the  sufRciency  of  the  universal 
creeds  of  Christendom.  It  is,  in  this  aspect  of 
it,  essentially  a  catholic  as  opposed  to  a  secta- 
rian school. 

Another  characteristic  of  this  school  is  its 
recognition  of  the  importance  and  value  of  mod- 
ern critical  investigation.     This  critical  investi- 


90  THE  CHURCH'S  LAW 

gation,  especially  as  applied  to  the  Scriptures, 
lias  been  regarded  Avitli  great  suspicion  by 
many  excellent  Christian  people.  It  has,  un- 
questionably, been  greatly  abused.  But  those 
who  entertain  such  apprehensions  forget  that 
criticism  is  constructive  as  well  as  destructive, 
and  that  the  right  use.of  the  critical  method  is 
sure  to  repair  the  evil  which  a  false  use  of  it  has 
occasioned.  The  critical  method  is  simply  an 
approved  instrument  of  investigation — a  means 
for  ascertaining  historical  truth.  The  use  of 
this  method  does,  indeed,  from  time  to  time, 
modify  the  generally  received  interj)retations, 
especially  of  the  historical  portions  of  the  Scrip- 
tures. It  may  lead  to  new  conclusions  as  to  the 
date  and  authorship  of  certain  books  of  the 
sacred  canon,  and  the  various  circumstances  un- 
der Avhicli  they  were  written.  It  compels,  per- 
haps, a  reconsideration  of  the  grounds  upon 
which  various  ecclesiastical  claims  are  urged, 
substituting  new  and  surer  grounds,  it  may  be, 
in  their  stead.  But  all  this  is  not  only  to  be 
expected,  but  is  eminently  desirable  ;  unless  it 
is  to  be  supposed  that  in  all  these  respects  the 
Church  has  long  since  reached  the  full  measure 


OF  DEVELOPMENT.  91 

of  the  truth.  The  value  of  the  results  to  be  at- 
tained abundantly  justifies  the  risks  attendant 
upon  their  attainment. 

I  have  already  suggested  the  danger  that  this 
tendency  may  not  only  throw  off  some  of  the  su- 
perfluous accretions  of  Christianity,  but  go  to  the 
length  of  denying  or  undervaluing  some  of  the 
fundamental  articles  of  the  faith,  the  very  basis 
on  which  Christianity  rests.  This  is  especially 
true  in  regard  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Atone- 
ment. Too  many,  in  this  school  of  thought, 
while  giving  special  prominence  to  the  man- 
ward  side  of  the  Atonement,  have  ignored  its 
Godward  efficacy,  and  lifted  their  hands  per- 
ilously near  this  altar  of  the  sacrifice  of  the  Son 
of  God.  But  in  the  historic  Church,  with  its 
unchanging  creeds  and  universal  testimony,  this 
tendency  has  been  kept  within  bounds  ;  and  we 
are  to  remember  that  it  is  to  this  very  spirit  of 
free  inquiry  and  independence  of  mere  tra- 
ditionalism that  we  owe  the  Anselmian  theory 
of  the  Atonement. 

This  line  of  thought  leads  naturally  to  the 
importance  of  other  schools  in  the  Church,  not 
only  for  their  qualifying  and  restraining  iuflu- 


92  THE  CHURCH'S  LAW 

ences,  but  also  for  tlie  special  service  which 
they  render  to  the  cause  of  catholic  truth. 
There  is  a  class  of  views  of  Christianity  and 
the  Church  which  has  exercised  a  stupendous 
influence  upon  Christian  history,  and  is  exceed- 
ingly prominent  in  our  own  Church  at  the  pres- 
ent day.  It  is  designated,  somewhat  according 
to  the  various  stages  of  its  development,  as  the 
High- Church,  Sacramentarian,  Tractarian,  and 
Ilitualistic  school.  I  am  to  speak  frankly  of 
its  dangerous  influence  and  candidly  of  the  ser- 
vice which  it  has  rendered  to  our  common 
Christianity.  The  dee2:)-seated  evil  which  so 
largely  j^ervades  this  school  is  its  idea  of  the 
ministry  as  related  to  God  and  man.  It  is  not 
the  idea  of  a  historic  church  and  a  transmission 
of  orders,  from  the  apostles'  time  to  the  pres- 
ent hour,  or  even  of  the  exclusive  validity  of  an 
episcopally  constituted  ministry.  The  former 
idea  is  held  by  many  Low-Churchmen,  the  lat- 
ter by  many  High -Churchmen,  who  go  no  far- 
ther than  that.  But  the  idea  to  which  I  refer 
is  the  sacerdotal — the  idea  that  the  ministry  of 
the  Gospel  is  a  true  and  joroper  priesthood  for 
the  performance  of  essentially  mediatorial  acts 


OF  DEVELOPMENT.  93 

between  man  and  God.  In  tliis  I  find  great 
peril  to  the  Church  to  day.  I  can  not  express 
the  apprehensions  which  I  have  in  regard  to  its 
influence  in  our  beloved  Church,  or  the  impor- 
tance of  a  vigorous  development  of  opposite  in- 
fluences and  tendencies.  But  I  turn  from  what 
I  regard  as  its  false  and  dangerous  character  to 
that  inestimable  service  which  this  school  does 
render  to  the  truth,  by  the  firmness  with  which 
it  holds — whatever  else  it  loses  —  the  funda- 
mental facts  and  ideas  of  historic  Christianity. 
And  here  I  refer  especially  to  the  sacrificial 
character  of  the  death  of  Christ.  I  find  its  the- 
ology pervaded  with  the  sacrificial  idea.  In  the 
fellowship  of  this  truth  I  can  follow,  even  be- 
yond the  boundaries  of  our  Protestant  Church, 
the  sad  footsteps  of  John  Henry  Newman  and 
Frederic  W.  Faber.  While  amazed,  and  strick- 
en in  heart  by  the  perversions  by  which  I  am 
thus  sarrounded,  I. seem,  for  the  moment  at 
least,  to  see  every  corruption  made  sweet  by  the 
sprinkling  of  the  precious  blood  of  the  Lamb 
of  God,  and  every  dark  place  illumined  by  the 
light  of  the  cross. 

The  ecelesiasticism  and  sacerdotalism  of  this 


94  THE  CHUMCH'S  LAW 

scliool  are  more  or  less  restrained  by  tlie  Broad- 
Church  tendency,  just  as  the  hitter  is  qualified 
and  kept  back  from  a  fatal  rationalism,  in  large 
measure,  by  the  former.  Bat  both  need  a  still 
more  powerful  and  purifying  influence,  and 
that  I  find  in  evangelical  truth. 

I  am  very  far  from  claiming  that  evangelical 
truth  and  feeling  are  found  only  in  the  school 
to  which  I  now  refer  ;  but  to  me  it  has  always 
seemed  that  they  were  most  prominent  among 
those  who  are  known  as  the  Low-Church  or 
Evangelical  party.  Therefore  it  is  that,  al- 
though holding  views  of  the  sacraments  which 
very  few  of  them  would  accept,  and  of  the  his- 
toric character  of  the  institution  of  the  minis- 
try which  some  at  least  of  them,  would  prob- 
ably hesitate  to  avow,  I  cannot  but  say  that  my 
sympathies  are  chiefly  with  them,  for  they  hold 
most  dear  that  which  I  believe  to  be  at  the  very 
centre  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ,  I  know  that 
the  evangelical  system,  in  the  hands  of  fallible 
men,  is  attended  with  many  and  great  dan- 
gers. Its  indifference  to  the  external  and  for- 
mal  leads  sometimes  to  the  undervaluing  of  his- 
toric institutions,  and  of  the  body,  so  to  speak. 


OF  DEVELOPMENT.  95 

of  Christianity.  Its  dependence  upon  the  teach- 
ing of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  sometimes  accompanied 
by  a  confounding  of  tlie  impulses  and  conclu- 
sions of  the  individual  with  the  promptings  of 
the  Holy  Ghost.  Its  strong,  high  view  of  the 
relation  of  Christ  to  the  believer,  and  the  sub- 
stitution of  the  one  for  the  other,  sometimes 
leads  to  such  an  identification  in  idea  of  the 
two  that  the  believer  comes  to  regard  himself, 
not  only  as  forgiven  and  accepted,  but  as  sin- 
less in  Christ.  This  system  needs  free  inquiry 
and  investigation,  untrammeled  by  prejudice 
and  accepted  interpretation.  It  needs  the  in- 
fluence of  the  great  institutional  character  of 
the  Church  to  save  it  from  mere  individualism. 
What  is  there  in  it,  then,  that  constitutes  its 
inestimable  value?  It  is  this  :  It  tells  me,  and 
thus  interprets  the  deepest  wants  and  most  ar- 
dent longings  of  my  spirit,  that  when  my  soul 
understands  that  Christ  is  a  Saviour  from  sin, 
and  rests  on  him  for  salvation,  I  am  saved.  I 
may  have  been  under  a  gracious  covenant  be- 
fore, which  has  sheltered  my  infancy  and  early 
youth,  or  I  may  have  never  received  the  sign 
of  the  covenant,  and  been  a  wanderer  all  my 


96  THE  CHURCH'S  LAW 

days  from  God,  but  this  trust  in  Christ  has 
made  me  now,  once  for  all,  a  child  of  God. 
There  are  no  progressive  steps  in  the  accept- 
ance of  my  trusting  soul  and  the  forgiveness  of 
my  sins.  The  progress  is  all  in  me,  in  my  life 
of  love.  Sinful  though  I  am,  I  am  forgiven 
and  pressed  to  the  very  heart  of  God.  I  have 
a  power  in  the  consciousness  of  this  which 
moves  me,  as  nothing  else  could,  to  a  consecra- 
tion of  myself,  body,  soul,  and  spirit,  to  the 
Saviour.  T  find  here  the  "  power  of  God  unto 
salvation,  to  every  one  that  believeth." 

This  is  the  central  point  of  the  evangelical 
system.  There  is  a  legal  Christianity — legal, 
but  Christianity  still.  With  it  pardon  and  ac- 
ceptance are  progressive  and  dependent  upon 
Christian  living.  Religion  is,  under  such  a  sys- 
tem, oftentimes  a  matter  of  most  intense  earnest- 
ness. I  wonder  at  the  holy  lives  which  are  led 
by  those  who  are  toiling  after  the  peace  of  as- 
sured acceptance  with  God.  But  it  is  hard 
work.  It  is  unnecessary  bondiige.  It  is  a  fail- 
ure to  avail  ourselves  of  the  boundless  love  and 
grace  of  the  Saviour.     TheGosj)elis  good  news 


OF  DEVELOPMENT.  97 

pre-eminently  because   it  first    says,   "  Go  in 
peace,"  and  then,  "  Sin  no  more." 

We  have  thus  considered  the  mutual  relations 
of  various  parties  or  schools  in  the  Protestant 
Episcopal  Church.  I  have  endeavored  to  deal 
justly  with  all,  and  to  acknowledge  the  lespects 
in  which  the  Church  is  indebted  to  all.  At  the 
same  time  I  have  frankly  avowed  where  my  own 
sympathies  chiefly  lie.  Those  sympathies  are 
determined  not  so  much  by  objections  to  what 
are  commonly  called  Church  principles,  as  to 
the  prominence  which  they  are  sometimes  made 
to  assume  in  the  Christian  system.  I  am  aware 
that  Low-Church  princnples,  as  well  as  High- 
Church  principles,  may  be  made  to  stand  in  the 
place  of  the  most  important  and  precious  spirit- 
ual truths.  One  class  of  these  principles  has 
no  more  business  in  such  a  place  than  another. 
The  importance  of  every  such  principle  is  to  be 
determined  simply  by  the  prominence  which  it 
affords  to  the  central,  saving  truth  of  the  Gos- 
pel. Like  a  mountain  range,  in  which  siimmit 
after  summit,  rising  higher  and  higher  in  the 
clouds,  prepares  us  for  the  central  peak,  which 
towers  majestically  above  them  all,  these  vari- 


98  THE  CHURCH'S  LAW 

Otis  principles  and  truths  concerning  the 
Church  are  helpful  to  the  soul  only  when  they 
are  kept  in  due  subordination,  and  lead  on  to 
that  inner  and  higher  circle  of  truth  which  sur- 
rounds the  transcendently  glorious  j^erson  of 
Christ. 

In  this  view  of  the  Church,  as  a  higher  form 
of  the  Family  and  the  State,  I  have  represented 
it  as  fixed  and  unchangeable  in  certain  funda- 
mental institutions  and  truths,  but  as  jalastic  and 
capable  of  indefinite  modification  in  whatever  is 
necessary  to  adapt  it  to  its  mission  from  age  to 
age.  In  the  present  state  of  things  it  would 
seem  to  be  necessary,  in  order  to  the  healthful 
activity  of  the  Church,  that  there  should  be  a 
free  development  of  these  various  historical 
schools,  each  being  qualified  and  restrained  by 
the  others.  But  if  there  is  to  be  this  freedom 
of  development,  then  manifestly  whatever  is  of 
merely  human  origin  and  authority  in  the 
Church  may  be  srrbject  to  modification,  under 
the  pressure  of  some  manifest  necessity  or  in- 
disputable expediency.  And  even  within  the 
range  of  accepted  and  authoritative  formularies, 
there  must  be  large  room  for  the  free  play  of  in- 


OF  DEVELOPMENT.  99 

dividual  oj)inion  and  conscientious  conviction. 
We  are  to  remember  also  that  no  age  has  a 
monopoly  of  authority  in  regard  to  the  institu- 
tions or  the  faith  of  the  Church.  While  cer- 
tain periods  in  history  have  doubtless  occupied 
a  peculiarly  advantageous  position  for  testifying 
to  that  which  is  divine  and  essential  in  the 
Church,  and  also  for  establishing  its  formula- 
ries and  various  human  appliances,  yet  upon 
each  age,  after  all,  the  responsibility  must  rest, 
of  deciding  what  is  permanent  and  Avhat  is 
transient  in  that  which  it  has  inherited  from 
the  past. 

I  am  not  insensible  to  the  difficulties  and 
dangers  to  which  this  idea  of  life  and  move- 
ment, largely  unrestrained,  in  the  Church 
might  lead.  It  may  be  said  that  it  gives  free 
play  to  error.  So  it  does,  within  certain  limits, 
so  far  as  repression  by  ecclesiastical  discipline  is 
concerned.  But  notice  that  it  is  not  toleration 
of  error  which  I  advocate.  The  question  is 
simply,  what  is  the  best  method  of  restraining 
and  suppressing  it  ?  And  I  maintain  that  it  is 
more  effectually  restrained  and  suppressed  by  the 
moral  power  of  the  truth  than  by  any  possible 


100  TUB  CnUBCH'S  LAW 

ecclesiastical  machinery.  Setting  out  of  the  ac- 
count now  such  ecclesiastical  proceedings  as 
are,  unfortunately,  sometimesnecossary  for  im- 
moralities or  acts  intentionally  hostile  to  the 
Church,  though  committed  under  cover  of  alle- 
giance to  it,  it  seems  to  me  exceedingly  desir- 
able to  limit,  as  far  as  possible,  the  number  of 
offences  which  can  be  committed  against  the 
discipline  or  the  faith  of  the  Church.  A  ca- 
nonical system,  very  simple  and  general  in  its 
character,  would  seem  to  be  one  of  the  best 
methods,  not  only  of  cultivating  a  sense  of  per- 
sonal responsibility  and  honor  among  the  clergy, 
but  of  avoiding  the  needless  vexations  which 
attend  ecclesiastical  proceedings  upon  points 
which  involve  very  little,  if  any  thing,  of  a 
moral  character.  The  whole  drift  of  Avhat  has 
been  said  would  of  course  be  adverse  to  any  such 
proceedings  in  regard  to  questions  of  doctrine 
or  practice  which  have  been  controverted  points 
between  historical  schools  in  the  Church.  So 
far  as  questions  of  ecclesiastical  practices  are 
concerned,  they  may,  as  a  general  rule,  be  left 
safely  to  the  paternal  influence  of  the  bishop  in 
the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church,  except  where 


OF  DEVELOPMENT.  101 

they  are  indisputably  anti- Protestant,  on  the 
one  hand,  or  anti-Episcopal,  on  the  other. 
And  as  to  questions  of  doctrine,  all  experience 
T70uld  lead  us  to  great  caution  in  the  use  of  ec- 
clesiastical discipline,  except  in  cases  of  denial 
of  some  article  of  the  primitive  and  universal 
creeds. 

In  connection  with  this  consideration  of  the 
development  of  the  Church  by  means  of  antag- 
onistic schools  of  opinion,  it  would  be  well,  if 
there  were  time,  to  consider  the  correlative  law 
by  which  the  reconciliation  of  antagonisms  is 
effected.  But  that  is  a  view  of  the  subject 
which  cannot  now  be  pursued.  It  is  sufiQcient 
to  say  that  there  is  manifestly  a  conservative 
law  in  the  Church,  as  there  is  in  society,  by 
which,  after  reaching  a  certain  point  of  diver- 
gence, different  schools  of  opinion  begin  to  ap- 
proach each  other.  We  speak  of  this  as  a  law. 
It  is  a  law,  but  only  as  every  method  of  divine 
operation  is  a  law.  For  here  we  recognize,  amid 
all  diversities,  the  influence  of  that  Holy  Spirit 
which  "  maketh  men  to  be  of  one  mind  in  a 
house, ' '  and  under  whose  guidance,  through  all 
the  strange  vicissitudes  of  the  Christian  dispen- 


102  THE  CHURCH  8  LAW 

sation,  there  shall  at  last  be  a  Church  which  is 
high  in  its  historical  character,  and  the  tra- 
ditional system  which  shall  have  brought  down 
to  the  remotest  period  "  the  faith  once  delivered 
to  the  saints  ";  hroad  in  its  grand  catholicity 
and  its  grateful  appropriation  of  the  best  fruits 
of  science  and  culture  ;  and  evangelical  in  the 
joyful  consciousness  of  a  present  and  completed 
redemption,  and  in  acts  of  glad  obedience  to 
him  who  hath  made  all  nigh  unto  God  by  the 
blood  of  his  cross. 

I  cannot  understand  how  any  student  of  the 
history  of  the  Church  can  doubt  that  there  is  a 
divine  power  back  of  all  the  phenomena  which 
are  presented,  and  overruling  all  for  the  accom- 
plishing of  this  consummation.  That  divine 
power  is  the  presence  of  Christ,  walking  ever 
among  the  golden  candlesticks.  There  is  no 
meaning  in  these  phenomena  of  the  history  of 
the  Church,  or  power  in  its  services  and  sacra- 
ments, unless  they  are  luminous  with  the  light 
of  the  Saviour's  presence.  To  one  who  stands 
in  some  cathedral,  in  the  twilight  hour,  the 
great  windows  present  only  strangely  confused 
forms  and  lustreless  colors,  and  it  is  not  until 


OF  DEVELOPMENT.  103 

the  sun  rises  upon  them,  and  floods  them  with 
its  beams,  that  saints  and  apostles  stand  forth 
in  their  holy  beauty,  and  the  symbolized  facts 
of  the  Gospel  dawn  upon  the  soul.  And  so  the 
whole  visible  organism  of  the  Church  presents 
but  a  cold  and  meaningless  aspect  when  the 
light  of  the  Saviour's  presence  cannot  be  dis- 
cerned. But  when,  behind  the  whole,  the  Sun 
of  Eighteousness  moves  in  the  glory  which  no 
man  can  approach  unto,  then  it  is  all  instinct 
with  divine  significance,  and  radiant  with 
gleams  of  the  beauty  of  that  land  which  is  still 
afar  off. 

The  subject  which  we  have  been  considering 
brings  us  under  the  influence  of  all  those  in- 
spiring and  hallowed  associations  which  sur- 
round the  State  and  the  Family,  intensified  and 
spiritualized  in  the  higher  sphere  to  which  they 
are  now  applied.  We  are  stirred  by  a  patriotic 
spirit,  but  its  object  is  the  city  of  God.  We  are 
moved  with  filial  and  fraternal  affections,  but 
the  sphere  in  which  they  belong  is  the  family 
of  him  who  is  the  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ.  No  more  tender  influences  could  be 
conceived  of  than  those  which  in  these  relations 


104  THE  CHURCH'S  LAW 

move  US  to  love  and  honor  one  for  another,  and 
devotion  to  our  common  Lord  and  Master. 
Under  the  inspiration  of  these  feelings  we  shall 
labor  with  a  high  and  noble  enthusiasm  for 
Christ.  We  shall  see  one  evil  after  another  dis- 
appear. The  dark  temples  of  superstition  and 
idolatry  will  be  overthrown,  and  the  holy  tem- 
ple of  our  God  be  everywhere  built  up.  Upon 
the  bells  which  proclaim  the  joyful  news  to  the 
listening  nations  shall  be  inscribed  "  Holiness 
to  the  Lord  "  ;  and  as  their  glad  music  thrills 
the  sky,  we  may  exclaim,  with  assured  confi- 
dence of  the  speedy  advent  of  the  day  when  the 
"  kingdoms  of  this  world  shall  become  the  king- 
doms of  our  Lord  and  of  his  Christ," 

"  Ring  out  a  slowly  dying  cause 

And  ancient  forms  of  party  strife  ; 
Ring  in  the  nobler  modes  of  life, 
"With  sweeter  manners,  purer  laws. 

"  Ring  in  the  valiant  man  and  free, 

The  larger  heart,  the  kindlier  hand  ; 
Ring  out  the  darkness  of  the  land, 
Ring  in  the  Christ  that  is  to  be  !" 


THE   CHURCHES   MISSIOE" 

OP 

EEOOI^rCILIATIO]^. 


I  SHOULD  show  but  a  poor  a23preciation  of  the 
privilege  of  addressing  so  many  of  my  brethren 
of  the  clergy  did  I  not  endeavor  to  say  some- 
thing which  may  be  helpful  and  encouraging 
to  us  in  our  special  work.  In  seeking  to  do 
this,  my  thoughts  have  been  guided  by  that 
wonderful  declaration  of  St.  Paul  which  is 
found  in  2  Cor,  5  :  18 — "  He  hath  coisonTTED 

TO    US    THE   MINISTET    OF    RECONCILIATION." 

If  in  the  treatment  of  the  subject  I  shall 
speak  of  reconciliations  in  the  kingdom  of 
Christ  other  than  the  first  great  reconciHation 
Oi  the  soul  to  God,  it  is  certainly  not  because  I 
fail  to  realize  the  transcendent  importance  of 
that  the  primary  aspect  of  the  subject,  but  be- 


106  THE  CHURCH'S  3IISSI0N 

cause  through  these  other  reconciliations,  of 
which  I  shall  speak,  there  is  present  always  the 
underlying  idea  of  reconciliation  to  God. 

I  cannot  resist  the  conviction  that  a  special 
mission  of  reconciliation  now  presents  itself 
to  the  Pkotestant  Episcopal  Chukch.  This 
conviction  is  the  result  of  a  consideration  of 
certain  peculiarities  of  our  own  time,  and  of 
the  attitude  in  regard  to  them  which  this 
Church  is  capable  of  assuming.  These 
peculiarities  it  is  not  difficult  to  recognize. 
They  are  for  the  most  part  the  results  of  a 
transition  in  society  from  an  old  to  a  new 
order  of  things.  At  no  period  in  the  history 
of  the  world  has  there  been  so  eager  and  per- 
sistent a  questioning  of  every  thing  that  claims 
authority  over  the  human  mind,  and  such 
restlessness  under  established  institutions. 
The  process  so  far  has  been  chiefly  disintegrat- 
ing and  destructive.  The  great  conservative 
and  constructive  forces  upon  which  the  wel- 
fare of  society  depends  have  not  yet  specially 
asserted  themselves.  To  the  mind  which  has 
well  considered  the  divine  purpose  as  it  has 


OF  RECONCILIATION.  107 

unfolded  itself  in  history  tliere  are  openings 
in  the  clouds  tbrougli  whicli  we  can  catcli 
glimpses  of  the  light  of  the  coming  order  and 
peace  ;  there  are  many  voices  which  promise 
the  final  reconcihation  of  tlie  antagonisms 
which  now  disquiet  the  world.  But  the  pre- 
vailing aspect  is  that  of  confusion,  uncer- 
taint}^,  and  doubt  ;  and  venerable  institutions 
of  Church  and  State,  and  old  opinions  and 
philosophies,  and  ancient  modes  of  faith,  seem 
to  be  shaken  to  their  very  foundations. 

It  is  impossible  that  this  state  of  things  can 
long  continue.  The  human  mind  very  soon 
rebels  against  a  mere  negative  condition  ;  and 
positive  institutions  and  beliefs,  of  some  kind, 
are  sure  to  emerge  from  the  present  dreary 
waste.  The  problem  which  presents  itself, 
and  is  sure  to  be  more  or  less  satisfactorily 
solved,  is  to  discriminate  between  what  is  tran- 
sient and  what  is  permanent  in  human  life  and 
society  ;  to  determine  what  can  safely  be 
thrown  aside  as  dangerous  or  obsolete,  and 
what  must  be  retained  as  essential  ;  what  are 
the  mere  fleeting  prejudices  of  mankind,  and 


108  THE  CHURCH'S  MISSION 

what  are,  if  there    are  any  such,  immutable 
and  eternal  truths. 

In  order  to  a  satisfactory  solution  of  this 
problem  there  must  be  a  reconciliation  of 
various  antagonistic  elements  in  society.  In 
considering  the  mission  of  our  own  Church 
in  regard  to  this  work  of  reconciliation,  we 
are  left  to  inquire  : 

I.  What   Christian   Church    stands   in   the 
most  favorable  position  for  this  work  ? 

II.  How  can  men  alienated  froin  Christianity 
by  speculative  difficulties  be  reconciled 
to  the  Church  ? 

III.  Upon  what  principles  can  a  reconciliation 

of  various  Christian  bodies  be  brought 
about  ? 

IV.  How  can  the  antagonisms   in   our  own 

Church  best  be  reconciled  ? 

I.  There  is  a  phenomenon,  in  our  time,  which 
is  well  worthy  of  our  consideration,  and  that  is 
a  tendency  to  a  return  to  the  Church  of  Rome. 
I  do  not  now  refer  to  the  Tractarian  and  Rit- 


OF  RECONCILIATION.  109 

ualistic  movement,  however  mucli  that  may 
have  brouojht  about  a  different  feehno'  in  re- 
gard  to  some  of  the  pecuharities  of  that  Church. 
I  refer  now  to  a  sympathy  wliich  is  springing 
up  for  the  Cliurch  of  Rome  in  quarters  where 
perhaps  it  would  least  be  expected,  and  where 
its  existence  is  of  very  great  significance.  No 
one  can  have  failed  to  notice  the  altered  tone, 
of  late  years,  in  regard  to  this  subject.  The 
bitterness  of  earlier  controversies  seems  in  a 
great  measure  to  have  passed  away.  Educated 
men  generally  are  inclined  to  admit  that  the 
Church  of  Rome  has  played  an  important  part 
in  history,  in  the  preservation  of  civilization 
and  in  the  maintenance  of  a  spiritual  order  in 
society.  Political  considerations,  especially  in 
Germany,  are  bringing  about  a  different  atti- 
tude toward  the  Papacy.  Prince  Bismarck 
seeks  the  alliance  of  his  old  enemies  against 
new  and  more  dangerous  foes.  The  policy  of 
Leo  XIII.  seems  to  be  likely  to  be  conciliatory, 
and  to  adapt  itself  to  some  of  the  most  deeply- 
felt  wants  of  the  age.  There  are  many  men 
who  are  tired  of  mere  individualism,  are  op- 


110  THE  CHURCH' 8  MISSION 

pressed  with  the  confusion  in  which  free  in- 
quiry  has  resulted,  and,  in  the  reaction  which 
has  followed,  long  for  some  venerable  author- 
ity to  which  they  can  submit  themselves.  In 
this  state  of  mind  they  welcome  the  most  as- 
tounding claims  of  the  Church  of  Kome.  If 
science  has  driven  them,  as  they  think,  to  a 
doubt  of  immortality  and  a  denial  of  the  possi- 
bility of  knowledge  of  God,  then,  in  despair 
of  finding  a  religion  which  can  be  reconciled 
with  reason,  they  embrace  one  which  proudly 
sets  reason  at  defiance.  And,  more  than  this, 
there  are  timid  men,  in  all  our  churches,  who, 
distrusting  their  own  conclusions  and  alarmed 
at  the  confusion  which  prevails,  are  glad  to 
recognize  a  great  institution  which  claims  to 
think  for  them,  and  demands  of  them  only 
that  they  shall  believe  and  obey.  Various  in- 
fluences combine  to  give  strength  to  a  move- 
ment which  tends  toward  authority,  unity, 
and  positiveness  in  religious  institutions.  The 
certain  end  of  such  a  movement,  unless  it  can 
find  itself  elsewhere  satisfied,  is  in  the  Church 
of  Eome. 


OF  RECONCILIATION.  Ill 

What  is  needed,  in  order  to  meet  most 
beneficently  the  peculiar  wants  of  the  present 
day,  is  the  authority  which  belongs  to  catholic 
truth  and  historical  continuity  in  an  institi;- 
tion  which  is  in  sympathy  with  freedom  and 
progress  ;  which  encourages  scientific  inquiry  ; 
which  recognizes  the  right  and  responsibility 
of  private  judgment ;  and  which  testifies,  with 
no  doubtful  voice,  to  the  fundamental  truths 
of  a  personal  God,  a  divine  and  redeein- 
ing  Christ,  and  a  personal  immortality  for 
man. 

It  is  a  principle  common  to  all  forms  of 
Christianity,  outside  of  the  Church  of  Rome, 
that  there  is  not,  and  cannot  be,  any  visible  head 
of  the  Church  on  earth.  The  idea,  therefore, 
of  an  universal  empire,  with  any  one  on  earth 
representing  the  headship  of  Christ,  is  that 
very  feature  of  the  Paj)al  system  which  all  the 
rest  of  Christendom  rejects.  The  reconcilia- 
tion of  the  non-Christian  elements  in  society 
to  Christianity,  and  of  the  Christian  elements 
into  a  new  unity,  would  naturally,  therefore, 
take  form  in  national  churches,  vdth  a  com- 


112  THE  CHURCH' S'  MISSION 

men  faith  and  rites  of  worship,  and  in  com- 
munion with  each  other. 

One  of  the  most  striking  features  in  the  his- 
tory of  Christianity  has  been  the  existence  of 
national  estabhshments,  constituted  by  a  union 
of  Church  and  State.  The  tendency  in  our 
own  time  is  strongly  in  the  direction  of  dis- 
establishment and  the  independence  of  aU  re- 
lations of  the  State  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
Church  on  the  other.  Whether  this  is  to  be 
a  permanent  tendency,  or  whether  it  is  alto- 
gether a  salutary  one,  may  be  a  question. 
There  are  many  indications  that  the  tendency 
may  be  indefinitely  resisted  by  the  Church  of 
England.  And  when  we  remember  the  grand 
history  of  that  institution,  and  see  how  it  has 
its  roots  everywhere  in  the  social  and  domestic 
life  of  the  people,  and  how  beneficently  it  is 
now  gathering  all  the  best  interests  of  the  na- 
tion under  its  protecting  shade,  we  cannot  re- 
gard its  j)reservation  as  a  national  establish- 
ment otherwise  than  with  gratitude  and  joy. 
But  where  established  churches  do  not  exist, 
there  is  no  present  prospect  that  they  ever  will 


OF  RECONCILIATION.  11 3 

exist.  Relations  which  were  formerly  com- 
pulsory are  more  and  more  becoming  volun- 
tary, and  churches  in  the  future,  if  they  are 
to  become  in  any  sense  national,  must  become 
so  because  they  are  the  best  expression  of  the 
religious  life  of  the  nation,  and  are  accepted  by 
the  people  as  such. 

I  am  proceeding  on  the  supposition  that  the 
mission  of  reconciliation  cannot  be  satisfactorily 
accomplished — that  is,  that  modern  thought 
and  progress  cannot  be  reconciled  with  Chris- 
tianity, and  different  forms  of  Christianity 
cannot  be  reconciled  with  each  other,  Tinless 
our  Protestant  Christendom  is  unitied  upon  the 
basis  of  the  historic  faith,  and  organized  into 
institutions  which,  in  the  sense  already  laid 
down,  shall  be  National  Churches. 

It  is  vain  to  say  that  the  same  power  can  be 
secured  and  the  same  desirable  results  accom- 
plished by  the  co-existence  of  various  socie- 
ties, independent  of  each  other,  and  each 
claiming  to  present  some  special  aspect  of 
Christianity.  When  we  consider  what  the  re- 
ligion of  Christ  is,  the  attitude  of  these  various 


114  TEE  CEUBGH'8  MISSION 

Christian  bodies  toward  eacli  other  presents  a 
deplorable  spectacle.  The  work  of  the  Church 
of  Christ  in  the  world  is  carried  on  at  the  most 
tremendous  disadvantage  and  with  the  most 
needless  sacrifice  of  influence  and  means.  It 
is  probably  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  as  much 
of  the  energy  of  Christian  men  is  absorbed  in 
attacking  other  forms  of  Christianity  and  de- 
fending their  own  as  in  efforts  for  the  conver- 
sion of  the  world.  It  is  time  that  this  con- 
dition of  things  should  come  to  an  end,  and 
that  men  should  labor  for  some  form  of  Chris- 
tianity which  shall  win  to  itself  the  allegiance 
of  Christian  people,  and  become,  not  by  civil 
compulsion,  but  by  voluntary  acceptance,  the 
Church  of  the  nation. 

The  highest  ideal  of  the  Church  of  the  fu- 
ture is,  of  course,  the  nianifestation  to  the 
world  of  the  organic  unity  of  all  Christian 
people.  When  we  speak  of  "  organic  unity" 
we  mean,  of  course,  the  unity  which  belongs 
to  and  is  manifested  by  a  body  animated  by 
one  vitalizing  principle.  This  is  true,  to  some 
extent,  of  the  Church  regarded  as  the  "  blessed 


OF  RECONCILIATION.  Uo 

company  of  all  faithful  i)eople."  But  this 
unity  is  comparatively  powerless  because  there 
is  little  consciousness  of  it  in  the  body  itself, 
and  because  there  is  almost  an  entire  absence  of 
any  external  manifestation.  This  divided  and 
segregated  state,  in  which  there  is  so  little  con- 
sciousness or  manifestation  of  unity,  is  the 
result  of  wrong  opinions,  wrong  feelings,  and 
lack  of  spiritual  directness  and  power.  It  has 
been  profoundly  said  that  "  vice  separates 
men,  while  virtue  unites  them,"  and  it  is  the 
"  vice"  of  the  Christian  community — that  is, 
the  defective  moral  and  spiritual  sense— which 
keeps  the  faithful  in  Christ  Jesus  from  the  as- 
piration and  realization  of  unity. 

I  have  said  that  this,  organic  unity  of  all 
Christian  people  is  the  highest  ideal  ^  of  the 
Church  of  the  future.  The  full  realization  of 
this  in  the  sense  of  any  manifestation  of  unity, 
including  all  the  great  branches  into  which 
Christendom  is  divided,  is  so  remote  from 
any  present  indications  as  hardly  to  encourage 
any  practical  effort.  But  the  opportunity  cer- 
tainly lies  open  to  us  to  labor  for  reconcilia- 


116  THE  CHURCH'S  MISSION 

tion  and  unity,  witli  confident  hopes  of  suc- 
cess, within  certain  hmits,  and  in  certain  rela- 
tions whicli  we  are  abundantly  able  to  reach 
and  affect.  It  may  be  well  at  the  same  time 
to  remember  that  the  larger  realization  of  an 
all-embracing  unity  has  been  regarded  by  some 
of  the  profoundest  thinkers  of  this  century  as 
sometliing  to  be  directly  labored  for,  and  the 
Anglican  Church  as  the  great  agency  by  which 
it  is  to  be  aecompUshed.  Most  remarkable  in 
this  respect  is  the  testimony  of  Count  Joseph 
de  Maistre,  one  of  the  most  celebrated  writers 
of  the  ultramontane  school  in  the  Church  of 
Rome.  !N  otwithstanding  the  natural  preju- 
dices of  his  ecclesiastical  po^sition,  he  says,  in 
his  "Considerations  sur  la  France,"  that  if 
Christians  are  to  be  drawn  together  it  would 
seem  that  the  impulse  must  proceed  from 
the  Church  of  England.*     With  such  a  testi- 

*  "  Si  jamais  Ics  Chretiens  se  I'approcbent,  comme  tout 
les  y  invite,  il  semble  que  la  motion  doit  parlir  de  I'eglise 
d'Angleterre.  Le  presljyterienisme  fut  uno  oeuvre  fran- 
^aise,  et  par  consequent  une  a3uvre  exageree.  Nous 
sommes  trop  eloignes  des  sectatcurs  d'un  culte  trop  peu 
substantiel ;  il  n'y  a  pas  moyen  de  nous  entendre,    Mais 


OF  RECONCILIATION.  117 

mony,  from  such  a  source,  it  may  not  be  un- 
suitable for  us  to  feel  that  there  is  confided  to 
the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church,  which  has 
the  same  faith  and  order  as  the  Church  of 
England,  a  special  mission  of  reconciliation  in 
our  own  land,  and  a  special  agency  in  the 
building  up  of  the  future  Church  of  the  na- 
tion. 

II.  An  important  asi)ect  of  this  work  of 
reconciliation  is  suggested  by  the  alienation  of 
many  intellectual  and  educated  men  from 
Christianity.  Yery  much  that  might  be  said 
on  this  point  would  apply  to  the  whole  Chris- 
tian body  as  well  as  to  any  one  particular 
Church,  but  there  are  certain  respects  in 
which  I  think  our  own  Church  will  be  seen  to 

I'eglise  anglicane,  qui  nous  touohe  d'une  main,  touche 
de  I'autre  ceux  que  nous  ne  pouvons  toucher  ;  et  quoi- 
que,  sous  un  certain  point  do  vup,  elle  soil  eu  butte  aux 
coups  des  deux  partis,  et  qu'elle  prcsente  le  spectacle  un 
peu  ridicule  d'un  revolte  qui  preclic  I'obeissance,  cepen- 
dant  elle  est  tres  precieuse  sous  d'aiitrcs  aspects,  et  pent 
etre  consideree  comme  un  de  ces  intermedes  chimiques, 
capables  de  rapprocher  des  elemens  inassociables  de  leur 
nature." 

Considerations  sur  La  France,  Par  M.  Le  Cte.  Jph. 
De  Malstre. 


118  TEE.  CHURCH'S  MI88I0IT 

possess  special  advantages  for  the  discharge  of 
this  mission. 

It  is  undoubtedly  true  that  there  are  many 
minds,  at  the  present  day,  alienated  from 
Christianity,  not  from  aversion  to  its  moral  or 
spiritual  principles,  but  on  account  of  certain 
intellectual  difficulties  with  which  it  is  embar- 
rassed. One  of  these  difficulties  which  is  most 
widely  felt  and  most  injurious  in  its  results  is 
that  which  arises  from  the  supposed  impossi- 
bility of  verifying  those  facts  which  lie  at  the 
foundation  of  Christianity,  such  as  the  being 
of  a  personal  God,  the  supernatural  character 
of  redemption  in  Christ,  and  the  personal  im- 
mortality of  man.  Modern  habits  in  the  in- 
vestigation of  truth  ;  the  employment  of  the 
inductive  method  ;  the  invariable  use  of  veri- 
fication in  scientific  inquiry,  have  led  to  the 
denial  of  the  character  of  knowledge  to  any 
conclusions  except  those  to  which  these  meth- 
ods have  led.  As  a  natural  consequence  men 
will  say  :  '  All  this  that  you  claim  in  regard 
to  rehgionmay  be  true.  It  is  impossible,  per- 
haps, to  disprove  it,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  it 


OF  RECONCILIATION.  119 

is  impossible  to  prove  it,  and  we  cannot  be 
asked  to  assert  our  belief  in  regard  to  a  sub- 
ject of  wliich  we  have  no  knowledge,  and  are 
incompetent,  therefore,  either  to  affirm  or 
deny.'  This  agnosticism,  this  denial  of  the 
possibility  of  any  knowledge  of  the  infinite 
and  the  absolute,  stands,  therefore,  an  appar- 
ently insuperable  barrier  to  the  simplest  and 
most  fundamental  conceptions  in  religion. 

The  removal  of  this  difficulty,  and  the  recon- 
ciliation of  such  men  to  Christianity,  must  be 
accomplished  by  different  methods  from  those 
too  often  employed.  To  meet  this  agnosticism  \ 
by  fierce  denunciation  and  a  denial  to  it  of  any  i 
rational  or  legitimate  character,  to  treat  those 
who  avow  it  as  if  they  were  morally  bad  as 
well  as  intellectually  astray,  is  a  mistake  of  the 
most  dangerous  character.  There  is  a  certain 
truth  in  this  position,  which,  if  we  are  bold  and 
honest,  we  shall  not  fail  to  recognize.  To  rec- 
ognize it  boldly  and  honestly  is  the  first  step 
toward  the  removal  of  the  difficulty  by  which 
"t  is  attended. 

Suppose,  then,  that  we  have  recognized  the 


120  THE  CHURCH'S  MISSION 

value  of  the  scientific  method,  and  admitted 
that  the  purely  intellectual  processes  by  which 
it  is  sought  to  establish  the  fundamental 
principles  of  religion  are  not  followed  by  the 
same  kind  of  assurance  that  attends  a  result  in 
the  physical  sciences  reached  by  the  inductive 
method.  Suppose,  further,  that  we  have  admit- 
ted that,  until  some  satisfactory  method  for  the 
removal  of  the  difficulty  is  jDointed  out,  the 
agnostic  position  does  not  seem  to  be  alto- 
gether irrational.  We  are  then  prejDared  to 
take  a  ground  where  we  can  secure  for  reli- 
gion all  the  certitude  to  be  desired,  and  from 
which  it  is  impossible  that  we  can  be  dislodged. 
For  when  we  have  admitted  all  this,  which 
we  are  honestly  bound  to  admit,  we  can  assert, 
without  fear  of  reasonable  denial,  that  certi- 
tude is  possible  in  regard  to  certain  matters 
where  verification  is  imjDOssible  ;  that  in  cer- 
tain respects  where  we  cannot  verify  we  are 
bound  to  believe,  and  that  the  fundamental 
principles  of  religion  are  of  this  character. 
Take,  for  instance,  our  certitude  in  regard  to 
the  actual  existence  of  a  past,  such  as  we  re- 


OF  RECONCILIATION  121 

member  it,  or  as  it  has  been  certified  to  us  by 
the  memory  of  others.  This  is  a  conchision 
wliich  has  not  been  reached  by  the  inductive 
method.  It  is  not  susceptible  of  verification, 
and  yet  we  are  compelled  to  believe  it  by  the 
very  structure  of  our  miuds.  The  same  is 
true  of  the  fact  of  our  personal  identity  and 
of  the  continuity  of  nature.  A  certainty 
which  excludes  the  possibility  of  doubt  is  not 
attainable  even  by  the  scientific  method.  It 
is  simply  a  conviction  engendered  by  a  very 
high  degree  of  probability.  Just  such  a  sort 
of  probabihty  attaches  itself  to  the  fundamen- 
tal principles  of  rehgion.  The  universal  ten- 
dency of  the  mind  to  believe  in  these  invests 
them  with  a  very  high  degree  of  probability. 
But  then,  further  than  this,  the  testimony  of 
certain  faculties  of  our  nature,  whicli  are  most 
valuable  in  the  search  after  this  class  of  truths, 
contributes  to  the  certitude  we  seek.  The 
moral  sense,  which  is  a  fact  as  much  as  any 
other,  demands  this  result,  and  those  affec- 
tions which  the  moral  sense  declares  to  be  the 
best  and  noblest  element  in  us,  when  allowed 


122  THE  CHURCH'S  MISSION 

to  exercise  tlieir  influence  npon  the  mind,  lead 
to  tliese  fundamental  principles  of  religion. 

This  brings  us  to  a  point  of  great  practical 
importance  in  the  consideration  of  this  subject. 
"We  have  found  that  there  is  a  kind  of  certi- 
tude which  is  intuitive  in  its  character.  "We 
intuitively  believe  in  the  reality  of  our  past,  in 
our  personal  identity  at  different  times,  and  in 
the  continuity  of  nature.  "We  have  similar  in- 
tuitions in  regard  to  the  fundamental  princi- 
ples of  religion,  but  with  this  difference,  that 
in  the  case  of  religion  there  is  the  added  testi- 
mony of  the  moral  state  and  the  affections. 
Thus  the  existence  of  a  personal  God,  with 
the  attribute  of  infinite  goodness,  is  probably 
not  susceptible  of  proof  by  the  scientific 
method  ;  but  we  have  an  intuitive  conviction 
of  its  truth,  and  in  a  state  of  the  affections 
which  the  moral  sense  pronounces  to  be  good, 
we  believe  it  as  a  matter  of  course. 

This  ministry  of  the  affections,  in  the  search 
for  truth,  has  deeply  impressed  the  minds  of 
the  profoundest  philosophers.  Pascal  has 
beautifully  said  : 


OF  RECONCILIATION.  123 

"  Divine  things  are  infinitely  above  nature,  and  God 
only  can  place  tlicm  in  the  soul.  He  lias  designed  that 
they  should  pass  from  the  heart  into  tbe  head,  and  not 
from  tbe  head  into  the  heart,  and  so  as  it  is  necessary  to 
know  liuman  things  in  order  to  love  them,  it  is  neces- 
sary to  love  divine  things  in  order  to  know  them." 

The  same  truth  has  been  gracefully  ex- 
pressed by  the  present  Archbishop  of  Dubhn, 
when  he  says, 

"  To  halls  of  heavenly  truth  admission  wouldst  thou 

win? 
Oft  knowledge  stands  without,  while  love  may  enter  in." 

These  ideas,  I  am  aware,  have  given  rise,  in 
some  cases,  to  an  extravagant  mystical  the- 
ology* but,  foreign  as  the  whole  system  of  mys- 
ticism is  to  our  jjresent  mode  of  thinking, 
there  is  good  reason  to  believe  that  the  mysti- 
cal apprehension  of  truth  is  an  essential  ele- 
ment in  a  complete  system  of  philosophy,  and 
that,  while  a  theology  founded  merely  upon 
intellect  and  logic,  or  merely  upon  feeling  and 
intuition,  will  be  defective,  one  that  is  wisely 
compounded  of  both  elements  will  be  symmet- 
rical and  complete  in  the  harmony  and  fulness 
of  truth. 


124  THE  CHURCH  8  MISSION 

We  may  depend  upon  it  that  this  age,  hard 
and  materiajistic  as  it  is,  is  just  in  a  condition 
to  respond  to  this  presentation  of  the  ministry 
of  the  affections  in  the  apj)rehension  of  truth. 
Frederick  Robertson,  with  his  acute  sense  of 
what  is  most  j)rofound  in  human  nature,  says 
that  '  men  find  a  rehef  from  the  materiahsm 
to  which  they  feel  themselves  compelled  in 
science,  in  the  mystical  element  in  the  poetry 
of  Tennyson  and  Browning.'  Show  men  that 
there  are  paths  of  sentiment  and  affection  which 
lead  to  heritages  of  truth,  assured  to  them,  by 
Catholic  consent  and  tradition,  as  divinely 
communicated  to  the  world,  and  many  a 
choice  spirit  will  be  won  from  the  darkness  of 
doubt  and  unbelief,  and  reconciled  to  faith  in 
God,  in  Christ,  and  the  eternal  life. 

The  attitude  of  the  clei'gy  in  reference  to 
the  results  of  scientific  inquiry  is  of  very  great 
importance  in  this  connection.  Men,  for  the 
most  part,  receive  their  impressions  of  Chris- 
tianity from  the  representations  of  the  clergy, 
and  thus  Christianity  is  oftentimes  held  re- 
sponsible for  the  misapprehensions  of  its  advo- 


OF  RECONCILIATION.  J 25 

cates.  The  clergy,  as  a  class,  are  exceedingly 
averse  to  any  modifications  of  their  views  of 
truth,  not  unnaturally,  perhaps,  confounding 
their  views  of  truth  with  truth  itself.  It  is 
too  often  forgotten  that  theology  is  a  progres- 
sive science  ;  that  while  there  is  no  change  in 
the  facts  upon  which  it  is  based,  there  is  a  very 
great  change  in  the  mode  in  which  those  facts 
are  apprehended  and.  expressed.  One  of  the 
principal  agencies  by  which  this  modification 
and  change  are  brought  about  is  scientific  in- 
vestigation, and  its  result  in  a  knowledge  of 
the  works  of  God.  This  knowledge  renders 
certain  theological  views,  which  formerly  were 
held,  without  disquietude,  absolutely  unen- 
durable. Happily  the  dogmatic  statements  of 
the  Church,  which  are  to  be  regarded  as  prac- 
tically unchangeable,  are  very  few,  and  relate 
only  to  the  fundamental  facts  of  the  Christian 
religion.  All  docti'inal  statements  outside  of 
the  doctrinal  basis  of  the  Church,  however 
logically  they  may  seem  to  be  deduced  from 
it,  are  properly  liable  to  modification  in  each 
age.     The  discoveries  which  each  generation 


126  TEE  CHURCH'S  MISSION 

makes  as  to  the  facts  and  laws  of  nature,  tlie 
more  thorough  knowledge  of  history,  the  study 
of  comj)arative  philology  and  theology,  all  fur- 
nish us  with  keys  to  various  treasure-houses  ol 
divine  truth.  They  open  to  us  new  revelations 
of  the  being  and  attributes  of  God.  The  rec- 
ognition of  this,  and  an  attitude  of  encourage- 
ment toward  the  freest  scientific  inquiry, 
would  do  much  to  remove  those  prejudices  of 
scientific  men  toward  Christianity  which  are 
the  result  of  the  prejudices  of  Christian  men 
against  science. 

I  feel  no  hesitation  in  urging,  in  the  interest 
of  Christianity,  the  encouragement  of  the 
freest  scientific  inquiry.  No  scientific  conclu- 
sions, be  they  true  or  false,  so  long  as  they  are 
confined  within  the  admitted  sphere  of  science, 
can  impugn  any  statement  of  the  universal 
creeds.  When  the  man  of  science  says  that 
he  studies  nature  without  any  preconceived 
ideas  of  how  it  came  to  exist,  or  what  is  its 
purpose,  if  it  has  any  purpose,  we  say,  '  Yery 
well,  we  are  satisfied  with  that.  All  that  we 
ask  is  that  you  shall  give  us  the  results  of  your 


OF  reconciliation:  u:' 

observation,  and  the  benefit  of  your  experience 
in  the  co-ordination  of  facts.'  Wlien  he  says 
furtlier,  '  I  find  in  matter  all  the  promise  and 
potency  of  life,'  we  are  very  far  from  being 
alarmed  as  if  he  had  discovered  that  the  idea 
of  God  might  now  be  dispensed  with.  "VYe 
do  not  need  to  ask,  for  every  mind  will  ask 
for  itself.  How  did  there  come  to  be  there  this 
promise  and  potency  of  life  ?  He  may  go  on 
and  say,  '  I  find  nothing  else  there. '  '  Very 
well,'  we  reply  ;  '  what  did  you  expect  to  find, 
or  what  do  you  suppose  we  expected  you  to 
find  ?  You  do  not  think,  do  you,  that  we  are 
disappointed  because  you  did  not  find  God 
there  ?  Do  you  not  know  that  it  is  a  funda- 
mental principle  in  Christian  philosophy  that 
you  will  not  find  God  in  any  or  all  phenomena 
of  the  natural  world  ?  Go  to  the  full  extent 
of  your  scientific  methods,  they  will  not  lead 
you  out  of  nature  into  the  spiritual  and  infinite 
world.  Afiirm  this  to  your  heart's  content, 
and  we  will  re-echo  your  affirmation.  But  if 
you  go  further  and  say  that  the  scientific 
method  is  the  only  one  which  leads  to  knowl- 


128  TEE  CHURCH'S  MISSION 

edge  and  truth,  and  since  it  does  not  disclose 
God,  therefore  there  is  no  God,  or,  at  all 
events,  it  is  impossible  for  ns  to  know  that 
there  is,  then  we  reply,  Now  you  have  gone 
beyond  the  sphere  of  science,  and  have  en- 
tered a  domain  which  is  not  peculiarly  your 
own.  We  have  gone  with  you  throagh  all 
your  scientific  investigations.  We  are  ready 
to  admit  all  your  conclusions.  We  do  not  care 
how  great  are  the  modifications  w^liich  it  may 
obhge  us  to  make  in  our  doctrinal  views  of 
any  thing  within  the  sphere  of  nature.  But 
you  have  gone  as  far  with  the  scientific  method 
as  it  is  possible  for  you  to  go.  Now  listen  for 
a  moment  while  we  venture  to  speak  of  that 
which  is  inscrutable  in  and  through  nature. 
You  have  taught  us  wonderful  truths  about 
nature.  You  have  not  only  made  us  under- 
stand better  its  marvellous  beauty,  but  you 
have  shown  us  that  it  is  the  embodiment  of 
types,  ideas,  and  orderly  progression.  We 
have  learned  of  you  that  it  is  "  saturated  with 
thought, ' '  and  answers  strangely  to  powers  of 
perception    and     classification    in    ourselves. 


OF  reconciliation:  129 

Kow  is  it  not  reasonable  to  admit  that  this 
constitution  of  nature  gives  j)robability  to  that 
conviction  of  which  the  human  iiiind  has  in 
some  way  possessed  itself,  that  there  is  an  in- 
finite mind  of  which  nature  is  the  manifesta- 
tion ?  Are  there  not  universal  behefs  and  as- 
pirations which  in  this  way  find  a  rational  ex- 
planation ?  Does  it  not  enable  you  to  give  a 
more  probable  account  than  otherwise  of  con- 
science and  the  moral  sense  ;  and,  as  what  we 
claim  to  be  the  facts  of  redemption  present 
themselves  side  by  side  with  the  admitted  facts 
of  consciousness  and  experience,  is  there  not 
such  a  satisfactory  completeness  and  symmetry 
in  the  whole  theory  of  nature  and  life,  thus 
elaborated,  as  to  make  it  a  guiding  principle  of 
our  being  ? ' 

A  more  wise  and  just  attitude  toward  scien- 
tific theories  which  seem  to  militate  against 
certain  supposed  truths  of  revelation  would  do 
much  toward  reconciling  men  of  science  with 
the  Christian  faith.  These  theories  are,  some 
at  least  of  them,  rapidly  passing  into  univer- 
sally accepted  statements  of  facts.     It  would 


130  THE  CEUBGH'S  MISSION 

be  well  to  remember  that  Christian  men  have 
had  cause  enough  to  regret  their  hasty  opposi- 
tion to  theories  which  they  have  supposed  to 
be  irreconcilable  with  revelation,  but  which 
they  have  subsequently  been  compelled  to  ad- 
mit to  be  true.  This  has  been  the  case  con- 
spicuously with  astronomy  and  geology,  and 
the  result  has  been  a  more  rational  theism. 
It  would  not  be  any  stranger  if  some  theory 
of  evolution,  toward  which  scientific  investi- 
gation is  at  present  so  persistently  tending, 
should  be  finally  established,  and  as  a  result 
nature  should  come  to  be  regarded,  not  as 
proceeding  from  isolated  creative  acts,  but  as 
the  product  of  an  uninterrupted  and  all-j^er- 
vading  divine  process  and  agency.  The  effect, 
instead  of  being  to  remove  God,  in  our  idea  of 
him,  further  from  nature,  would  be  to  bring 
him  nearer  to  our  wondering  apprehension 
and  awe. 

These  thoughts  in  regard  to  the  reconcilia- 
tion of  science  to  Christianity  lead  to  a  grand 
and  most  encouraging  view  of  the  ministry  of 
science  in  God's  providential  government  of 


OF  RECONCILIATION.  131 

tlie  world.  Men  wlio  devote  themselves  to 
the  study  of  nature  are  laying  broad  and  deep 
foundations  for  a  structure  the  form  and  pur- 
pose of  which,  for  the  most  part,  they  little 
understand.  Upon  these  foundations  they  are 
rearing  walls  with  giant  piers  and  buttresses. 
Within  are  innumerable  fair  and  majestic 
forms,  flooded  with  unimaginable  splendors  of 
light.  But  here  is  a  magnificent  structure 
which  it  is  impossible  for  them  to  finish.  The 
crowning  glory  must  come  from  other  liands. 
It  is  the  power  of  Christ  alone  which  shall  lift 
a  Pantheon  into  the  sky  rs  the  fitting  (lomc 
of  a  structure  made  sacred  by  the  works  and 
word  of  Grod.  For  it  is  true  of  this  structure 
also,  that  it  is  Christ  ''in  whom  the  whole 
building,  fitly  framed  together,  groweth  unto 
an  holy  temple  in  the  Lord. " 
'  III.  One  of  the  most  important  problems  of 
reconcihation  that  presents  itself  to  our  Church 
in  this  day  is  that  which  is  involved  in  the  re- 
lations we  sustain  to  other  Christian  bodies  out- 
side of  the  Church  of  Rome.  These  bodies, 
for  the  most  part,  trace  their  history   as  or- 


132  THE  CHURCH'S  MISSION 

ganized  institutions  back  to  the  period  of  tlie 
Reformation,  some  of  them  claiming  to  have 
existed  in  more  or  less  distinct  form  since  the 
Apostolic  age.  Without  stopping  now  to 
consider  the  question  whether  episcopacy  is 
essential  to  the  being  of  a  Church,  it  may  be 
well  for  us,  at  the  outset,  to  recognize  the  fact 
that  there  are  Cliristian  communions  with 
whom  we  stand  in  very  close  relations,  who 
are  to  be  regarded  as  holding  essentially  the 
doctrines  of  the  Apostles'  and  Kicene  Creeds, 
as  having  the  sacraments  in  their  essential  fea- 
tures, as  retaining  something  at  least  of  the 
original  organization  and  government  of  the 
Church,  and  as  exhibiting  their  Christian  faith 
in  lives  of  devotion  and  works  of  charity. 
There  are  many,  no  doubt,  who  hold  that  the 
differences  between  these  Christian  bodies  and 
our  own  Church  are  of  minor  importance,  and 
there  ai-e  others  who  exaggerate  these  differ- 
ences, and  regard  them  as  making  the  line  of 
division  between  that  which  possesses  and  that 
which  is  destitute  of  the  essential  elements  of 
the  Church.     There  are,  however,  many  very 


OF  RECONCILIATION.  133 

tliouglitful  men  in  our  time — and  among  them 
the  well-known  Dr.  Goulbnrn,  Dean  of  Nor- 
wich, who  has  presented  his  viev/s  very  forci- 
bly in  his  book  on  the  Holy  Catholic  Church — 
who  hold  that  whatever  may  be  the  defects  of 
organization  in  those  Christian  bodies,  which 
retain  substantially  the  Mcene  faith,  they  are 
to  be  regarded  as  having  acquired  legitimacy 
by  existing  for  so  long  a  period,  and  as  consti- 
tuting, therefore,  integral  parts  of  the  Christian 
commonwealth. 

There  are  also,  among  us,  those  who  believe 
strongly  in  the  dependence  of  Christian  life 
upon  the  sacraments  and  ordinances  of  the 
Church,  and  who  therefore,  from  the  admitted 
piety  prevailing  in  these  Christian  bodies,  infer 
the  possession  on  their  part  of  legitimate  rites 
and  ordinances.  This  is  a  position  which  com- 
bines high  sacramentarian  views  with  broad 
views  of  the  ministry  and  the  Church. 

It  should  be  remembered  that,  whatever  may 
be  the  exclusive  views  of  individuals,  the 
churches  of  tlie  Anglican  communion  have 
never  restrained  liberty  of  opinion  within  the 


134  THE  CHURCH'S  MISSION 

limits  liere  indicated.  No  one  view  or  doc- 
trine, therefore,  in  regard  to  this  snbject  can  be 
imposed  as  obligatory  upon  the  member  of 
the  Church. 

Amid  this  allowable  diversity  of  opinion, 
for  which  we  have  reason  to  be  devoutly 
thankful,  it  may  perhaps  be  found  that  there 
are  more  possibilities  of  unity  of  feeling  and 
action  than  we  have  been  accustomed  to  sup- 
pose. It  is  certainly  desirable,  at  all  events, 
that  there  should  be  a  careful  reconsideration 
of  all  the  bearings  of  our  attitude  in  regard 
to  this  subject. 

If  it  is  simply  a  question  of  the  uncondi- 
tional surrender  of  all  these  Christian  bodies 
and  the  adoption  of  the  institutions  of  the 
Church  as  we  have  received  it  ;  if  these  so- 
cieties are  utterly  without  legitimacy,  and  have 
nothing  which  they  can  usefully  contribute  to 
the  Church  of  the  future,  then  it  necessarily 
follows  that  there  is  no  attitude  possible  for  us 
but  that  of  unqualilied  hostility,  united  with 
the  astounding  claim,  on  our  part,  that  instead 
of  being  simply  one  of  the  fragments  (perhaps 


OF  RECONCILIATION.  135 

the  nearest  to  the  original  type),  into  which 
our  common  Christianity  has  been  unhappily 
divided,  we  alone  are  the  representatives  of  the 
Church  of  Christ  in  this  land,  and  upon  us  the 
whole  responsibility  of  Christian  institutions 
rests.  For  it  will  hardly  be  claimed  that  we 
share  this  representative  position  and  responsi- 
bihty  with  the  Clmrch  of  Kome  in  a  sense  in 
which  we  do  not  share  them  with  other  Chris- 
tian bodies.  The  claim  that  the  Church  of 
Rome  stands  in  any  closer  relations  to  us  than 
orthodox  Protestant  churches  is  fatal  to  our 
own  position  as  a  Church.  It  yields  so  much 
to  Kome  that  it  takes  away  from  us  all  justifi- 
cation for  separate  existence.  If  then  we 
claim  a  right  to  exist  independently  of  Rome, 
and  yet  share  no  representative  position  and 
responsibility  with  any  of  the  Protestant 
churches,  we  do  assert  for  ourselves  the  pre- 
rogative, and  assume  for  ourselves  the  tremen- 
dous obligations  of  being  the  only  Church  of 
Christ  in  this  land.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say 
that  any  theory  must  be  f ataUy  defective  which 
leads  to  so  preposterous  a  conclusion. 


136  THE  CHURCH'S  MISSION 

In  avoiding  such  a  conclusion  we  shall  find 
that  there  is  very  important  common  ground 
upon  which  we,  with  the  non-Episcopal 
churches,  can  stand.  The  pressure  of  the 
Church  of  Rome  upon  modern  society  will 
make  a  closer  union  among  Christians  not 
within  its  pale  imperatively  necessary.  It  is 
time  that  we  carefully  considered,  not  so 
much  the  points  in  which  we  differ  as  those 
in  which  we  agree.  Especially  is  it  desirable 
that  we  should  ascertain  the  original  points  of 
divergence,  and  what  elements  of  the  original 
Church  have  been  carried  on  in  the  various 
forms  into  which  it  has  been  divided.  It  is 
the  wise  advice  of  Lord  Bacon,  in  regard  to 
the  reformation  of  Church  or  State,  to  revert 
to  their  original  institution  and  see  wherein 
they  liave  departed  from  the  fundamental 
principles  of  their  organization.  This  method 
of  reform  in  the  Church  is  historical,  and  re- 
gards the  Church  as  an  organization,  with  the 
germs  of  its  future  development  present  in  it 
from  the  first.  Its  true  growth  must  therefore 
be  in  the  direction  of  germinal  development. 


OF  RECONCILIATION.  137 

Its  whole  past  must  be  carried  forward  into  its 
future. 

The  present  embarrassments  which  stand  in 
the  way  of  the  organic  unity  of  the  Church 
consist  mainly  in  the  existence  of  several  ec- 
clesiastical polities,  suj)posed  to  be  antagonistic 
to  each  other.  These  polities  are,  in  general 
terms,  the  Congregational,  the  Presbyterian, 
and  the  Episcopal.  In  examining  the  essential 
peculiarities  of  these  polities,  we  shall  hnd 
that  they  all  existed  contemporaneously  in  the 
early  Church.  The  fundamental  principle  of 
Congregationalism  is  the  independence  of  the 
Church  in  a  particular  place,  the  right  of  be- 
lievers, in  a  town  or  city,  which  was  the  origi- 
nal parish  or  diocese,  to  regulate  their  own 
worship  and  administer  their  own  affairs. 
This  was  certainly  true  of  the  original  diocese 
in  the  primitive  Church.  The  fundamental 
principle  of  Presbyterianism  is  the  parity  of 
the  presbytery,  but  it  is  a  parity  which  admits, 
in  its  original  idea,  of  a  lyr'iinxis  inter  jjares^ 
which  approaches  very  closely  to  the  idea  of 
episcopacy,  and  many,  ngt  only  in  the  Church 


138  THE  CHURCH'S  MISSION 

of  England  but  in  the  Churcli  of  Rome,  have 
held  that  a  bishop  does  not  belong  to  a  differ- 
ent order,  but  simply  holds  a  higher  office  than 
his  brother  presbyters  in  the  Church.  T]ie 
essential  element  in  episcopacy  is  the  office  of 
a  bishop,  succeeding  to  that  office  by  an  un- 
broken succession,  to  whom  is  committed  the 
general  superintendence  of  the  diucese  over 
which  he  presides,  and  to  whom  certain  func- 
tions exclusively  belong. 

JSTow  suppose,  and  the  supposition  is  made, 
not  because  it  suggests  any  thing  which  may  be 
practicable  or  desirable,  at  present,  but  simply 
in  order  to  show  what  common  elements  there 
are  in  these  various  organizations — suppose,  I 
say,  that  the  mo(^ern  diocese  should  come  to 
be  reduced  to  the  primitive  model,  and  com- 
prise only  the  Church  in  a  single  city  and  its 
suburbs  ;  suppose  the  principle  of  a  larger 
diocesan  independence  were  recognized  ;  sup- 
pose that  one  among  the  presbyters  were  set 
apart  for  life,  in  conformity  to  a  law  of  suc- 
cession, to  a  jDarticular  office  of  superintend- 
ence, we  should  have  a  Church  episcopal  ii< 


OF  RECONCILIATION.  i:>0 

its  polity,  and  yet  comprising  the  essential  ele- 
ments of  Congregationalism  and  Presbjterian- 
isni.  The  old  catholicity  of  organism  would 
be  restored. 

Without  urging  this  point  beyond  a  mere 
suggestion  of  these  common  features  of  or- 
ganization, I  wish  to  say  a  word  in  regard  to  a 
matter  which  is  of  very  great  importance  to 
us  and  to  the  non-Episcopal  churches.  I  refer 
to  the  widening  chasm,  in  our  modern  times, 
between  the  State  and  the  Church,  This  ten- 
dency is  fast  rendering  a  Christian  State,  as 
such,  impossible.  It  has  originated,  in  great 
measure,  in  the  fact  that  the  Church,  in  our 
time,  is,  as  a  unit,  invisible.  It  is  a  body  the 
outlines  of  which  are  indefinite.  It  is  wanting 
in  organization.  It  can  come  into  no  relations, 
as  an  organism,  w4th  civil  society.  In  the 
present  imperfect  catholicity  of  the  Church  it 
is  impossible  for  the  State  to  enter  into  rela- 
tions with  it.  They  would  be  relations  merely 
with  some  fragments  or  .one-sided  develop- 
ments of  Christianity.  It  is  not  so  much  hos- 
tility on  the  part  of  the  State  to  the  Church 


140  THE  CnUBCH'a  MISSION 

which  is  leading  everywhere  to  a  separation 
between  the  two  as  the  diiiicultj  of  ascertain- 
ing what  is  the  common,  universal  Christianity^ 
what  is  the  Catholic  Church. 

Until  there  is  the  development  of  a  higher 
catholicity  this  tendency  is  inevitable.  It  will, 
in  all  probability,  proceed  in  our  own  country 
and  the  other  countries  of  Christendom,  until 
every  tie  of  union  between  the  State  and  ec- 
clesiastical organizations  is  sundered.  The 
Christian  State  as  such  will  have  disappeared. 
It  is  to  littlo,  if  any,  purpose  that  we  resist 
this  tendency.  In  the  j)i'esent  condition  of 
the  Christian  Church  it  would  not  be  wise 
perhaps  to  endeavor  to  retain  the  institution 
of  the  Christian  State.  But  the  secularization 
of  the  State  cannot  certainly  be  the  culmina- 
tion of  Christian  civilization.  Naj^,  rather  out 
of  the  monstrous  character  of  such  a  position, 
thus  made  evident,  will  come  the  cry  for  a 
catholicity  broad  enough  for  the  State  to  stand 
iipon.  After  the  failures  of  "independent 
morality,"  and  Christless  philosophies,  and 
Godless  civilizations,  we  may  perhaps   make 


OF  RECONCILIATION.  141 

real  to  ourselves  that  grand  unity  of  which 
Plato  dreamed  in  the  "  Re^Dublic,"  or  that  still 
vaster  and  grander  conception  of  St.  Augus- 
tine in  the  ''  City  of  God." 

The  (^iiestion  of  present  practical  relations 
with  the  various  non-Episcopal  churches 
around  us  is  one  of  very  great  importance, 
and  not  to  be  too  hastily  concluded.  It 
may  serve  to  guide  us  in  the  consideration 
of  the  question  if  we  keep  distinctly  in 
mind  what  the  end  is  which  we  wish  to 
have  accomplished.  This  end  I  hold  unhesi- 
tatingly to  be  the  restoration  of  organic 
unity.  Whatever  relations  will  tend  to  bring 
about  this  result  upon  the  basis  of  the  Catholic 
creeds  and  primitive  order  I  believe  to  be  pre- 
cisely the  relations  most  desirable  for  us  to 
cultivate.  Our  view  of  the  character  of  these 
relations  maybe  somewhat  modified  if  we  con- 
sider them  from  a  standing-point  which  we 
are  not  much  accustomed  to  occupy,  and  ask 
not  what  we  have  to  contribute  to  this  organic 
imion,  but  what  these  other  Christian  bodies 
have  to  contribute.     We  are  sufficiently  fa- 


14^  THE  CHUBCU'S  MISSION 

miliar  with  the  advantages  and  excellences  of 
our  own  system.  We  value  very  highly  the 
historical  character  and  unbroken  continuance 
of  the  ministry  of  the  Church  from  apostolic 
times.  "We  attach  great  importance  to  the 
Church  year,  and  to  liturgical  worship.  The 
dogmatic  basis  of  the  Church,  in  the  universal 
creeds,  and  the  Church  system  of  training,  we 
believe  to  be  of  inestimable  value  in  the  devel- 
opment of  Christian  character.  The  compre- 
hensiveness and  catholicity  of  the  Church 
make  it  in  its  very  nature  the  rallying  ground 
for  all  the  followers  of  Christ.  Now  let  us 
see  what  special  gifts  and  graces  there  are  in 
the  non-Episcopal  churches  which  they  would 
be  able  to  contribute  to  the  Church  of  the 
future. 

In  the  first  place  the  numerical  strength  of 
these  Christian  bodies  gives  them  very  great 
importance  and  influence.  For  the  most  part 
great  importance  is  attached  among  them  to 
culture  and  learning  among  the  clergy.  We 
might  naturally  hesitate  before  entering  into  a 
comparison  of  our  educational  institutions  with 


OF  RECONCILIATION.  143 

theirs.  They  have  covered  the  land  with  be- 
nevolent organizations,  and  their  missionary 
operations  are  to  be  found  in  every  part  of  the 
heathen  world.  They  witness  also  for  the 
most  part  to  those  features  of  Christianity 
which  are  of  the  most  vital  importance.  They 
have  blessed,  and  are  blessing,  the  world  with 
innumerable  saintly  lives.  It  would  not  be 
difficult  perhaps  to  enlarge  upon  the  weak 
points  in  these  religious  systems  ;  but  that  does 
not  fall  in  with  my  present  object,  which  is  to 
dwell  upon  those  points  in  w^hich  their  acces- 
sion would  enrich  the  Church  of  the  future. 

What  we  need  very  much  to  cultivate  is  a 
generous  appreciation  of  these  excellences  to 
which  I  have  referred.  "We  shall  do  well  to 
seek  and  value  the  personal  relations  to  which 
such  appreciation  Avould  naturally  lead.  There 
is  also  a  large  field  of  charitable  and  even  re- 
Hgious  effort  in  which  association  with  Chris- 
tians of  other  churches  would  secure  impor- 
tant results  without  any  possible  compromise  of 
Church  principles.  The  present  Church  law 
which  forbids  the  participation,   in  any  ser- 


144  TEE  CHURCH'S  MISSION 

vice,  in  our  congregations,  of  any  persons  who 
have  not  been  episcopally  ordained,  or  are  not 
communicants  of  our  Church,  may  be  wise  in 
view  of  all  the  circumstances  involved.  Be- 
fore there  was  such  a  law,  liberty  of  action  in 
this  matter  was  a  liberty  to  be  vindicated  if 
assailed.  The  law,  however,  as  it  now  is, 
must  be  loyally  obeyed.  In  the  consideration 
of  this  subject,  however,  it  should  always  be 
remembered  that  the  relations  between  non- 
Episcopal  churches  and  our  own  are  not  em- 
barrassed as  they  are  in  England  by  the  fact 
that  the  Church  is  an  institution  of  the  State. 

Probably  not  much  more  can  be  done  at 
present  in  the  direction  of  organic  unity  than 
to  make  our  own  Church  more  and  more  truly 
evangelical  and  catholic,  and  to  promote  among 
ourselves  a  more  intelligent  and  generous  es- 
timate of  those  Christians  from  whom,  for  the 
time,  we  are  separated.  It  may  not  be  long 
before  the  dangers  which  threaten  our  com- 
mon Christianity  will  become  so  formidable  as 
to  force  us  into  closer  relations  and  union. 
What  may  be  accomplished  in  this  respect  by 


OF  RECONCILIATION.  145 

a  deeper  sense  than  we  now  have  of  oiir  under- 
lying unity  in  Clirist  we  cannot  now  tell. 
May  He  who  ' '  maketh  men  to  be  of  one  mind 
in  a  house"  bring  this  union  to  pass  in  His 
own  good  time  ! 

IV.  In  order  that  our  Church  may  most 
wisely  and  efficiently  aid  in  giving  form  to  the 
future  Church  of  the  nation,  it  is  necessary  that 
a  reconciling  ministry  should  be  accomplished 
within  its  own  borders,  and  among  the  various 
schools  of  opinion  which  it  contains.  We 
cannot  expect  that  others  will  be  drawn  into 
unity  with  us  until  we  have  learned  to  be  a 
unity  among  ourselves.  We  must  start  in  our 
consideration  of  this  part  of  our  subject  with 
the  fact  clearly  impressed  upon  our  minds 
that  there  has  been  an  historical  development 
of  widely  differing  schools  of  opinion  in  the 
Church  of  England  and  the  churches  with 
which  it  is  in  communion.  At  no  time  since 
the  period  of  the  Reformation  has  there  been 
60  wide  a  diversity  in  any  one  ecclesiastical  or- 
ganization. In  those  religious  bodies  even,  in 
which  there  is  supposed  to  be  the  largest  free- 


146  THE  CHURCH'S  MISSION 

dom  from  authority,  the  limits  of  permissible 
belief  are  far  more  narrow  than  with  us.  This 
results  from  the  fact  that  they  avowedly  exist 
for  the  purpose  of  exhibiting  Christianity 
under  some  special  ty]3e  of  it,  and  the  presence, 
in  such  societies,  of  those  to  whom  Christianity 
presents  itself  under  another  aspect,  is  not  de- 
sired. To  my  mind  this  comprehensiveness  is 
a  great  glory  of  the  Church,  and  the  recogni- 
tion and  acceptance  of  it  is  the  first  step  to- 
ward the  unity  for  which,  in  the  midst  of  di- 
versity, we  are  to  seek. 

This  diversity  and  comprehensiveness  of  the 
Church,  in  which  the  early  schools  of  Rome 
and  Alexandria  are  recalled  to  our  minds,  does 
not  arise  from  any  preconceived  plan  for  the 
development  of  the  Church,  but  is  the  inevi- 
table result  of  the  circumstances  in  which  the 
Church  has  been  placed.  It  was  inevitable 
that  the  spirit  of  the  Roman  Empire,  to  so 
many  of  the  forms  and  ft)  so  much  of  the 
genius  of  which,  the  Church  succeeded,  should 
pass  into  the  Christianity  of  modern  times, 
and  reveal  itself  in  excess  of  dogma  and  organi- 


OF  RECONCILIATION.  147 

zation.  It  was  inevitable  that  the  spirit  of  the 
Greek  philosophy  should  characterize,  in  these 
latter  days,  a  class  of  thinkei's  in  the  Church 
who  would  chafe  under  dogmatic  authority,  re- 
bel against  what  they  might  regard  as  too  ri^id 
organization,  and  contend  for  freedom  in  sub- 
jecting both  the  Church  and  Revelation  to 
the  test  of  human  reason.  It  was  inevitable 
that  there  should  be  a  class  of  men  who,  start- 
ing with  supreme  regard  for  the  spiritual  in 
Christianity,  sliould  attribute  to  the  Scrip- 
tures, in  their  understanding  of  them,  an  au- 
thority which  they  deny  to  the  Church,  and 
accept  the  traditions  of  their  own  school  as 
more  to  be  valued  than  those  which  have  the 
sanction  of  catholic  consent.  It  is  easy  to  see 
excellences  in  each  of  these  schools.  It  is  easy 
to  see  the  perils  to  which  the  unrestrained  de- 
velopment of  any  of  them  would  lead.  Let 
any  one  of  them  be  separated  from  the  restrain- 
ing influences  of  the  Church,  and  it  would  soon 
run  into  the  most  dangerous  extremes. 

Even  within  the  Church,  and  under  the  re- 
straining influence  exercised  by  the  presence 


148  THE  CHURCH'S  MISSION 

of  other  classes  of  opinion,  each  of  these 
schools  has,  at  least  in  the  case  of  some  of  its 
members,  and  with  threatening  indication  of 
wider  defection,  gone  beyond  the  limits  of  the 
legitimate  comprehensiveness  of  the  Chnrch, 
and  transgressed  the  boundaries  of  evangelical 
and  catholic  truth.  There  is  a  latent  source 
of  error  in  the  exclusive  position  of  each,  and 
it  flows  with  ever-increasing  volume  through 
the  logical  processes  by  which  the  original 
position  is  developed.  Each  one,  therefore, 
has  in  it  an  element  of  danger  for  the  Church. 

How  shall  they  be  restrained  and  these 
threatening  dangers  averted  ?  is  a  question 
which  has  always  been  one  of  great  import- 
ance ;  perhaps  never  of  more  importance  than 
now.  It  is  a  vital  question  in  connection  with 
the  subject  we  are  considering. 

The  method  which  most  naturally  suggests 
itself,  and  which  has  been  most  frequently 
adopted,  is  that  of  repression  by  ecclesiastical 
authority.  It  is  evidently  within  the  legiti- 
mate province  of  the  Church  to  protect  itself 
from  erroneous  teaching.     The  only  question 


OF  RECONCILIATION.  149 

is  bj  what  means  that  protection  can  best  be 
secured.  Let  it  be  by  ecclesiastical  authority, 
through  pains  and  penalties,  if  that  method, 
and  that  alone,  can  succeed.  But  when  we 
remember  that  we  are  in  the  first  place  to  be 
certain  that  the  teaching  which  we  propose  to 
repress  is  erroneous,  and,  in  the  second,  that 
our  attempts  to  suppress  it  by  force,  if  it  be 
erroneous,  may  not  succeed,  we  may  well 
pause  before  we  jDroceed  in  that  direction. 
History  teaches  us  a  very  important  lesson  in 
this  respect,  especially  the  history  which  this 
generation  has  been  making.  The  effort 
which  has  been  made  in  England  to  restrain, 
by  legal  proceedings,  the  excesses  of  each  of 
these  schools  in  turn  has  been  attended  only 
with  failure,  and  the  present  agitation  under 
the  Public  "Worship  Regulation  Act  is  most 
disastrous  in  its  effect  upon  the  Church.  The 
attempts  of  the  same  sort  which  have  been 
made  in  the  Church  in  this  country  have  been 
no  more  encouraging. 

It  would  seem,  therefore,  that  even  if  such 
proceedings  are  right  in  theory  they  ai'e  not 


150  THE  CHURCH'S  MISSION 

practicable  in  tlie  present  state  of  j)ublic  opin- 
ion. It  is  doubtful,  however,  whether  they 
are  even  theoretically  right,  in  connection  with 
any  opinions  which,  by  a  liberal  construction, 
can  be  regarded  as  belonging  to  any  one  of 
these  historical  schools.  It  is  not  at  all  un- 
likely that  the  protection  of  the  Church  from 
false  teaching  may  be  found,  after  all,  to  de- 
pend largely  upon  the  free  development  of 
these  various  schools.  Each  one  is  held  back 
from  excess  by  the  restraining  influence  of  the 
others.  But  if  you  suppress  one,  wholly  or  in 
part,  you  not  only  restrain  the  free  develop- 
ment of  the  Church  in  that  direction,  but  you 
give  undue  influence  and  power  to  opposing 
tendencies.  Suffer  all  to  work  freely  together, 
and  each  will  prove  a  conservative  power  in 
the  Church. 

We  may  go  farther  even  than  this.  "Where 
we  have  reason  to  believe  there  is  loyalty  to 
Christ  and  to  the  Church,  a  man,  so  far  from 
being  restrained,  is  to  be  encouraged  in  the 
avowal  of  the  opinions  of  any  of  these  histori- 
cal schools  within  the  limits  to  which  his  loy- 


OF  RECONCILIATION.  101 

alty  will  permit  him  to  go.  If  lie  lias  no  true 
loyalty  to  Christ  or  the  Church,  and  is  only 
making  an  hypocritical  pretext  of  it,  I  know  of 
no  better  protection  for  the  Church  than  that 
which  is  to  be  found  in  the  loss  of  influence 
and  power  by  which  such  hypocrisy  is  sure  to 
be  attended.  The  bold  and  frank  avowal  of 
convictions  in  regard  to  this  whole  class  of  sub- 
jects is  of  immense  importance  to  a  rich  and 
full  development  of  the  Church,  It  is  re- 
pressed convictions,  and  utterances  to  which 
there  is  no  corresponding  belief,  that  degrade 
individual  character  and  are  fatal  to  any  robust 
faith  in  the  Church. 

This  strong  avowal  of  personal  conviction, 
which  I  claim  should  be  encouraged  rather 
than  repressed,  is  perfectly  consistent  with  the 
toleration,  so  far  as  compulsory  measures  are 
concerned,  of  opposing  convictions.  They 
may  be  tolerated  so  far  as  compulsion  is  con- 
cerned, while  they  are  properly  assailed  by 
force  of  argument.  They  may  be  tolerated,  if 
for  no  other  reason  than  that  they  may  in  that 
way  be.  the  more  readily  restrained. 


152  THE  CnURCff'S  MISSION 

I  plead  for  strong  individual  assertion  of 
what  seems  to  eacli  man  divine  ti'uth,  and  for 
generons  toleration  of  similar  assertion  on  the 
part  of  others.  It  is  no  compromise  of  what 
we  believe  to  be  tnith  that  I  advocate,  but 
simply  the  according  to  others  of  what  we  feel 
to  be  so  solemn  a  duty  for  ourselves.  But 
there  is  a  deeper  reason  still  for  this  large  and 
brotherly  toleration.  Our  views  of  truth  are 
very  limited  and  partial,  and  while  there  are 
certain  fundamental  j^rinciples  in  regard  to 
which  we  will  not  admit  that  there  can  be  any 
reasonable  doubt,  we  have  reason  to  believe 
that  there  is  a  higher  unity  in  which  these  ap- 
parently in-econcilable  systems  are  found  to 
enter  harmoniously,  each  necessary  to  the  com- 
pleteness and  symmetry  of  the  whole. 

"When  we  have  become  familiar  with  one 
class  of  phenomena  in  the  heavenly  bodies,  and 
learned  the  facts  and  laws,  for  instance,  of  the 
solar  system,  we  are  disturbed  by  revelations 
of  nebulae  and  binary  stars.  We  should  have 
expected  simply  the  reproduction  through 
space  of  what  we  have  found  so  beautiful  and 


OF  RECONCILIATION.  153 

admirable  in  our  own  system.  But  tlie  Maker 
of  tlie  universe  Las  a  liiglier  and  all-compre- 
hending unity  to  wliicli  all  these  diversities 
are  subordinated. 

May  it  not  be,  after  all,  that  the  ultimate 
cause  of  all  these  diversities  which  new  so 
greatly  disturb  us,  and  seem  so  inconsistent 
with  unity,  is  to  be  found  in  the  multitudinous 
aspects  of  the  character  and  work  of  Christ  ? 
Here  there  has  come  to  us  a  Divine  Man, 
flooded  with  the  glories  of  the  infinite,  the  ex- 
press image  of  God,  and  men  gaze  with  daz. 
zled  vision  at  this  marvellous  revelation  and 
then  strive  to  utter  what  they  have  seen.  Ko 
wonder  that  different  aspects  of  the  splendor 
have  flashed  upon  different  eyes  ;  and  since  no 
man,  nor  all  men,  have  witnessed  and  can  tes- 
tify to  the  whole  glory  of  this  revelation  of 
God,  no  wonder  that  it  is  difficult  now  to 
blend  all  testimonies  into  one  harmonious  rep- 
resentation of  what  Christ  is  and  what  Christ 
has  done.  Let  each  man  to  whose  longing 
gaze  Christ  has  manifested  himself  say  freely, 
though  he  may  say  with  sad  imperfection,  just 


154  THE  CHURCH'S  MI8SI0N 

what  Christ,  in  that  marvellous  experience, 
seemed  to  him. 

When  it  Avas  the  jourpose  of  David  to  build 
a  temple  which  should  exceed  all  other  struc- 
tures, in  stateliness  and  magnificence,  he  called 
upon  the  people  to  make  their  offerings  for 
the  erection  of  this  House  of  the  Lord.  There 
were  brought  to  the  king,  in  vast  abundance, 
silver  and  gold  and  brass  and  iron  and  cedar 
wood  and  hewn  stones.  When  the  building 
came  to  be  erected,  it  rose,  without  noise  of 
hammer,  like  "  a  majestic  palm  in  the  desert." 
We  are  called  upon  to  bring  our  contribu- 
tions to  the  building  up  of  the  great  Church  of 
the  future,  the  visible  organization  of  the  re- 
deeming work  of  Christ  in  our  land.  We  are 
to  bring  to  it  the  consecration  of  our  hves, 
whatever  of  natural  gifts  of  learning,  or  elo- 
quence, or  powers  of  administration,  there 
maj  be  among  us.  We  are  to  bring  to  it  the 
sacrifice  of  our  prejudices,  of  our  partisan 
spirit,  of  our  unholy  ambition.  We  are  to 
bring  to  it  glad  and  grateful  recognition  of  all 
tha,t  others  can  bring.     We  are  to  bring  to  it 


OF  RECONCILIATION.  155 

great  lieritages  from  the  past  whicli  God  has 
intrusted  to  our  keeping,  but  more  especially 
all  we  have  of  present  devotion  and  grace. 
We  are  to  bring  to  it  our  faith  in  God  and 
Christ,  our  hope  for  the  future  of  the  world, 
our  charity  for  all  mankind.  This  great  temple 
of  the  time  to  come  will  be  built  without  the 
touch  of  Jiuman  hand,  by  the  power  of  the 
Holy  Ghost.  It  will  rise  amid  the  sur- 
rounding darkness  like  a  vast  dome  of  light, 
as  when  northern  fires  '  nash  suddenly  and  si- 
lently in  countless  sj^ires  through  the  heavens. 
Though  radiant  as  the  luminous  sky,  it  shall  be 
as  firm  and  enduring  as  the  everLsting  rock. 
0  grand  and  beautiful  vision  of  prophecy,  rise 
in  all  thy  glorious  reality  upon  the  longing 
eyes  of  the  cl^ldren  of  God  ! 


APPENDIX. 


The  Sermon  on  Chaiily  and  Trulli,  was  requested  for 
publication  in  the  following  letter  : 

Boston,  April  14,  1859. 

Rev.  and  Dear  Bkotheu  :  At  our  meeting  to-day, 
in  St.  Paul's  Lecture  Room,  it  was  unanimously  voted 
by  the  clergy  and  laity  present  to  ask  of  you  a  copy  of 
your  able  and  timely  sermon,  preached  to-day  at  the 
onliuatiou  of  Mr.  Coolidge  ;  and  the  undersigned  were 
appointed  a  committee  to  carry  the  resolution  into  ef- 
fect. 

By  complying  with  the  request  yoa  will  not  only 
greatly  favor  us  personally,  but  also  confer  a  large 
benefit  upon  the  beloved  Church  of  which  we  are  mem- 
bers, and  upon  the  Christian  public,  for  whose  best  wel- 
fare we  are  bound  to  exert  ourselves. 

Your  sincere  friends  and  aflfectionate  brethren  in  the 

ministry  of  the  Gospel. 

Samuel  Fuller, 

E.  M.  P.  Wells, 

E.  L.  Dkown. 


reply. 

Boston,  April  15,  1859. 
Rev.  and  Dear  Brethren  :   I  have  received  your 
kind  letter  requesting  a  copy  of  my  sermon  for  publica- 
tion.     I  cannot  well  refuse    a  request  the  granting  of 


n  APPENDIX. 

•which  is,  in  your  opinion,  likely  to  be  productive  of 
good. 

I  should  have  been  glad  to  enlarge  upon  some  of  the 
points  contained  in  the  sermon  ;  but  as  you  have,  in  a 
certain  sense,  endorsed  it,  by  requesting  ils  publication, 
I  feel  bound  to  publish  it,  if  at  ail,  just  as  it  was  delivered. 

I  am  affectionately  your  friend  and  brother, 

John  Cotton  Smith. 

The  Rev.  Samuel  Fuller,  D.D, 
The  Rev.  E.  M.  P.  Wells,  D.D., 
The  Rev.  E.  L.  Dkown. 


The  Sermon  on  The  Liturgy  as  a  Bas:s  of  Christian 
Union,  was  one  of  a  Course  delivered  under  the  auspices 
of  the  Bible  and  Common  Prayer  Book  Society,  and 
afterwards  published  in  a  volume. 

The  Sermon  on  the  Church's  Law  of  Development, 
was  requested  in  the  following  letter  : 

To  the  Rev.  John  Cotton  Smith,  D.D : 

The  undersigned  members  of  the  Convention  of  the 
Diocese  of  New  Yoik,  having  listened  with  great  pleas- 
ure and  satisfaction  to  your  able  and  eloquent  sermon 
preached  at  the  opening  services  j'esterday,  desiie  that 
you  would  furnish  them  a  copy  of  the  same  for  publica- 
tion, that  their  brethren  in  the  Church  at  large  may  have 


APPENDIX.  .   lii 

an  opportunity  of  sharing  iu  the  pleasure  and  profit 
which  they  have  experienced. 


[signed.] 
The  Rt.  Rev.  Horatio  Potter,  D.D.,  D.C.L. 


Benjamin  I.  Haight, 

MoliGAN  Dix. 
Isaac  H.  TuTTiiE, 
Henry  C.  Potter, 
J.  H.  Rylance, 
Thomas  Gallaudet, 
James  Starr  Clark, 
J.  Tuttle  Smitk, 
Solomon  (t.  Hitchcock, 

JOSKPH    I.  BlCKNKr>L, 

Brockholst  Morgan, 
RoMAiNK  S  Mansfield, 
Gkorge  F.  Seymoufi, 

F.  S.  Fleisch hacker, 
J.  Eastbuun  Buown, 
Albeut  S.  Hull, 
Charles  Seymour, 
James  VV.  Sparks, 
Wilt,iam  Neters, 
Samuel  M.  Akeuly, 
W.  T.  Egbert, 

G.  H.  Smith, 
George  W.  Ferguson, 
Charles  C.  P.\rsons, 
Henry  T.  Satteulee, 
John  P.  Lundy, 
Stephen  F.  Holmes, 
Fhedehick  Ogilby, 
Edmund  Guilbert, 

F.  B.  Van  Kleeck, 

William  S 


Edward  C.  Houghton, 
L.  Baily, 
A.  F.  Olmsted, 
George  B.  Keese. 
George  M.  Mh-leti, 
James  F.  DePeysteb, 

ErASTUS  15R00KS, 

George  Weller, 
Geoi!ge  Dorster, 
C.  V.  R.  Ludington, 
W.  M.  Posti,ethwaite, 
Cornelius  B.  Smith, 
Philander  K.  Cady, 
Francis  Harison, 
Caleb  Ci,app, 
Charles  B  Coffin, 
John  F.  Potter, 
John  W.  Kramer, 
VV  m.  W.  Montgomery, 
A.  W.  Snyder, 
Walter  Delafield, 
R.  F.  Crary, 

C.  T.  Woodruff, 
Hiram  Roosa, 

James  Byron  Murray, 
Frederick  Sill, 
Arthur  H.  Warner, 
F.  S.  Winston, 

D.  B.  Whitlock, 
Frederic  De  Peyster, 
Langford. 


New  York,  September  27,  1872. 


IV  APPENDIX. 


My  Dear  Bishop  and  Brethren  of  the  Clergy 
AND  Laity  :  I  have  received,  through  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Haight,  your  request  for  the  publication  of  tlie  sermon 
preached  at  Ihe  opening  of  the  lale  Convention  of  this 
Dincese.  I  feel  deeply  sensible  of  the  honor  conferred 
upon  me  by  this  departure  from  ordinary  usage,  and  by 
the  kind  tribute  which  vras  paid  to  the  sermon  during 
the  session  of  Convention. 

This  has  been  the  more  |!;ratifying  because  it  is  an 
evidence  that  the  questions  which  agitate  our  Church 
can  be  discussed  without  bitterness,  and  that  views, 
which  in  times  of  excited  controveisy  are  sure  to  be  mis- 
undertood,  at  other  times  are  equally  suie  to  receive  a 
fair  and  generous  hearing. 

It  is  my  object  in  the  sermon  to  show  that  there  are 
inherent  tendencies  in  the  Church  to  the  development 
of  three  schools  of  opinion,  and  that  while,  in  my  view, 
one  of  these  schools  gives  a  far  greater  prominence  than 
the  others  to  the  central  truths  of  the  Gospel,  yet  the 
mutual  action  and  reaction  of  the  three  are  essential  to 
the  activity' and  progress  of  the  Chuich.  As  a  neces- 
sary consequence  of  this  view,  it  follows  that  the  true 
method  of  restraining  the  undue  development  and  ex- 
aggerations of  any  one  school  is  not,  except  in  the 
most  extreme  c.ises,  by  ecclesiastical  repression,  but  bj' 
giving  a  larger  development  to  the  other  and  counter- 
balancing elements  in  the  Church. 


APPENDIX.  V 

It  is  gratifying  to  me  to  remember  that  m  a  sermoa 
preached,  at  au  ordiuation,  ia  1859,  and  requested  for 
publicalion  by  the  clergj'  prestiit,  I  endeavored  to 
present  the  same  idea.  It  contains  the  following  lan- 
guage : 

"  Ko  one  will  claim  that  the  best  results  in  Church 
or  in  Stale  have  been  brought  about  by  the  success  of 
the  views  of  one  or  another  party,  but  by  the  action 
and  reaction  of  one  upon  the  other.  So  that  it  is  un- 
questionably a  fact  that  better  results  have,  on  the  whole, 
been  attained  by  the  combined  action  of  these  various 
parties,  than  if  one,  however  pure,  had  directed  and 
controlled  the  movement  alone  And  that  is  simply  to 
say  that  God  is  wiser  than  any  or  all  of  those  whom  he 
employs  as  his  instruments  in  the  world." 

This  view,  it  seems  to  me,  and  this  alone,  famishes 
the  ke}^  to  the  due  restraining  and  harmonizing,  of  the 
antagonistic  elements  in  the  Church. 

In  the  hope  that  through  the  favor  which  you  have 
been  pleased  to  accord  to  the  sermon,  it  may  help,  in 
some  degree,  to  promote  that  end,  I  cannot  hesitate  to 
furnish  a  copy  for  publication. 

With  great  respect  and  affection,  faithful'y  yours  in 
the  Church, 

John  Cotton  Smith. 

Rectory,  Chukch  op  the  Ascension, 
Octobers,  3872. 


VI  APPENDIX. 

The  Sermon  on  the  Church's  Mission  of  Reconcilia- 
tion was  preached  before  the  Eastern  Convocation  of 
the  Diocese  of  Massachusetts,  and  was  requested  for 
publication  in  the  following  letter  : 

To  the  Rev.  Jolin  Cotton  Smith,  D.D. 

Rev.  and  Dear  Brother  :  By  vote  of  the  members 
of  the  Eastern  Convocation  of  the  Diocese  of  Massachu- 
setts, the  undersigned  were  appointed  a  committee  to 
request  the  publication  of  the  sermon  you  delivered 
before  them  to-day  in  the  Church  of  the  Ascension, 
Ipswich. 

We  listened  with  great  pleasure  to  the  expression  of 
your  views  as  to  the  mission  of  our  Church  in  reconcil- 
ing differences,  and  think  the  dissemination  of  such 
views  would  do  much  toward  giving  comfort  to  minds 
now  disquieted  by  doubts  and  difficulties. 

We  regiet  that  the  time  usually  devoted  to  the  deliv- 
ery of  a  sermon  did  not  permit  you  to  develop  one  im- 
portant point  5'ou  indicated  in  outline — viz.  :  "  Our 
Chuich's  relationship  to  other  bodies  of  Christians." 
We  beg  to  suggest  that  such  a  topic  is  one  of  especial 
importance  at  this  time,  and  that  whatever  will  aid  in 
bringing  together  the  scattered  members  of  Christ's  flock 
will  receive  the  serious  consideration  of  many  who  now 
lament  our  uuliappy  divisions. 

Thanking  you  for  the  pleasure  and  the  instruction 
you  have  given  us,  and  asking  for  our   brethren  the 


APPENDIX.  vu 

opportunity  to  enjoy    your    sermon    as    we    diJ,    we 
remain 

Very  trul}^  your  friends, 

Geoiige  W.  Shinn, 
Louis  De  Cormis, 
Bryan  B.  Killikelly. 
Ipswich,  Mass.,  September  18,  1879. 


REPLY. 


To  (lie  Rev.  Messrs.  George  W.  Shinn,  Louis  De  Cormis, 
Bryan  B.  Killikelly,  Committee,  etc. 
Rev.  and  Dear  Brethren  :  It  gives  me  pleasure  to 
comply  with  the  request  of  the  Eastern  Convocation  of 
Massachusetts  for  the  publication  of    my  sermon   on 
"  The  Church's  Mission  of  Reconciliation." 
Very  sincerely  yours, 

John  Cotton  Smith. 
New  York,  Ascension  Rectory,  ) 
October  1,  1879.  \ 


